XWAU02 -- Last Exile -- The Thundering Wing
by UruExplorer DTC
Summary: What exactly happened on Fam's world that lead to her eventually becoming a Kyoryuger? As Fam returns home following the events of Vamola! Kyoryuger, she looks back on those events so many years ago.
1. Exile

**DIGIMON XROS WARS: **  
**ALTERNATE UNIVERSE 02**

**-EXILED STORIES-**

* * *

**[THEN]**

* * *

The Void between worlds glowed crimson as a red orb of energy shot from one world to another, carrying its two riders along on a joyride.

"HAHAHA! RYOUMA-KUUN! THIS IS SO MUCH FUUUUN!" The two blue eyes of Nui Harime stared on in glee as she laughed at all of space and time in an escape vector from her old world.

"It really is, Harime-chan!" The familiar silver haired mug of Ryouma Mogami smiled at her in a way that could only be described as the evil version of pure love. Yes, it has been finally said, Ryouma Mogami, A.K.A. Quartzmon, was in love. "And when we land at the next world, we're going to have even more fun!"

"YAAAAAY!" Nui cheered, throwing her arms wide as she fell backwards into the warm embrace of the Original Life Fiber-

**[ORIGINAL LIFE FIBER]**

-that was being propelled through time and space as part of the final stage of Ryouma's "Screw Ragyo Over Royally" plan.

**"I WON'T ALLOW IT!"**

Ryouma and Nui turned around, and looked backwards at the fading orb of their old world to see a familiar little black and red uniform shooting towards them- single eye blazing in determination.

**[KAMUI SENKETSU!]**

**"I WON'T ALLOW YOU ANY PROGRESS!"** The Kamui yelled yet again as he chased after them. **"YOU WON'T COVER UP ANY MORE WORLDS WITH LIFE FIBERS!"**

Nui pouted, "Boo! The Uniform must've got pulled in along with us."

"Well, we're about to hit the new world," Ryouma smirked, "let's let him watch without end as we do exactly what he doesn't want us to do." And with that, he threw an arm out and let loose a burst of energy that shot towards Senketsu...!

**"LIKE HELL!"** Senketsu shifted into an even more streamlined rocket form- and burst forwards at speeds that seemed impossible in the void of worlds...!

"PROTECTION BARRIER!" Ryouma intoned- and then suddenly that blast of energy spread out, forming a shield that Senketsu slammed into and bounced off of immediately.

"WAAAH!" the Kamui cried out in terror as he spiraled away.

Nui laughed, "Lookit, Ryou~me~! He's spiraling out of control!"

Ryouma laughed along side her, "Indeed! Hah! And without a Xros Loader, there's NO WAY he can follow us into our new world!"

Senketsu regained control and flew at the barrier once more- at a reduced speed, however. And his single eye narrowed at the world just out of his reach... a world that the Original Life Fiber was descending down towards. "Damn it!" Senketsu punched at the shield, then grumbled, "What the hell is a Cross Loader?"

* * *

**[NOW]**

* * *

**"THE BAR"**

**Requested by: R3qu13m0f50ul5**

**Written by: Calum Traveler**

* * *

**WORLD ID: SPN4TR4-VR816**

**"HIGHWAY TO HELL" BAR.**

**9:42 P.M.**

* * *

"Oh just pull that old record Off the shelf!" a man at the bar drunkenly sang. "I sit and listen to them byyy mah self!"

A scruffy looking man slammed an empty glass on the table, "Grahh... this world is pissin' me off."

The biker with a helmet that had a third eye painted on the forehead smirked, "You can thank my son for pointing it out to us."

"Quartzmon as he is normally is terrifying enough," The suave looking man with blue and red hair said as he quietly sipped at his glass- one of a lot smaller than those of his companions combined. "But him planning on willingly being possessed by an Angel just so he can eat the angel's mind alive and take their powers on is a scary thought beyond that..." He blinked. "I don't think that sentence came out right."

The three of them looked across the bar to the man singing horribly off key, his strange silver hair revealing him to be one of Quartzmon's many disguises.

"PFFFT!" all three of them barely contained their laughter.

"So how are we going to go about this?" Beelzebmon, in human form, asked.

"I say we take him outside and get him to a hospital," Torin recommended.

"I say we just shoot 'im," Dogold remarked.

"We'll get arrested," Beelzebmon countered, "then the kids have to break us out of jail."

"And the Bastardmon figures out we're here," Torin added.

"Hah, I like that one," Beelzebmon laughed, and then raised a hand to the bartender, "Good Sir! Another round of drinks please!"

The bartender raised an eyebrow at their drunken conversation, but simply passed it off as the usual drunken banter of Hunters.

And hunters they were, of a sort; just not the kind he was thinking of.

While Dogold and Torin started on the next round of their drinks, Beelzebmon took his, got up and said, "Watch this! Haha!"

In what seemed to be an impossible length of time, Beelzebmon crossed the bar to the karaoke machine where the man that was Quartzmon's human form was still singing.

"Oh just a good ol' Rock an' Roll!" Quartzmon finished before looking down at Beelzebmon in confusion. "Eh? Do I know you? You look...f'miliar somehow?"

"You could say that, Bastardmon," Beelzebmon gave a grin, and then threw his drink straight into Quartzmon's eyes.

"ARRGHH!? WHAT THE FU-!?" And then Beelzebmon kneed him between the legs and then grabbed the microphone stand and broke it over Quartzmon's back.

"And THAT-" Beelzebmon yelled loudly so the whole bar, confused and unsure of what to do at the moment, could hear. "THAT is for the headache you gave me and my wife fifteen years ago!"

Torin stared on for a moment before asking, "Did he really just do what I think he did?"

Dogold just finished off his drink and laughed, "I think he did."

Poor Quartzmon never knew what hit him as the whole bar descended into a brawl centered on him for some unknown offense fifteen years earlier.

And it was glorious.

* * *

The next morning, Fam, Caleb, and Mahiro stood outside the cell that our three drunken heroes had found themselves in.

"So what exactly," Mahiro asked as he looked his father straight in the eye, "was your plan?"

Beelzebmon blinked through the pain of a black eye and a hangover, and then said, "I really didn't have anything beyond calling him 'Bastardmon'."

Fam blinked, Caleb blinked, Mahiro blinked.

And then Caleb asked, "So how did that work out for you?"

Torin, nursing a hangover as well as an ice-pack to his head, just jabbed a thumb at the cell to his immediate left.

Fam leaned to her right, which was to Torin's left, and peered into the cell where Quartzmon was lying passed out on a stone bench, drooling from a lack of teeth. Then, she leaned back and said, "So you knocked his teeth out."

"Correction! We cleaned his clock! HAHAHA!" Dogold laughed, looking the best out of the three despite the bloody nose he proudly sported.

Beelzebmon and Torin groaned at the loud, boisterous laughter.

Mahiro sighed, "Well, I guess that's about the best we can do right now."

"Yup," Caleb nodded, "let's get you guys outta here."

And with that- Bragigas's head peered in through the wall- partially phasing through via teleport as his eyes flash white and teleported everyone out of the Jail Cell, leaving behind only some very confused guards with strange security camera footage.

* * *

**"Ambiguous Overture"**

**Written By: Calum Traveler**

* * *

Fam stormed down the hallway to the room where they stored all the large supplies that couldn't easily be shrunken down.

There, lying under a tarp, was the familiar form of her Vespa.

Fam stared at it for a few moments before walking over and tearing the tarp off.

Underneath was the still-unfamiliar black and red painted form of the once-Silver Vespa.

Except for the fact that it wasn't paint.

That much proved itself as the single, crimson eye on the front left side fluttered open and stared up at her, almost asking "What took you so long?" with its stare.

They stood in that frozen pattern for a few moments, their fragile alliance together just as strained as it ever was, just like when they met.

They both remembered, just as if it had been yesterday, despite it being well over two years ago for each of them.

**[THEN]**

Senketsu stared into the barrier that kept him from pursuing his prey.

The strangest thing about this void was that time held no meaning. In what seemed like months- Senketsu had only gone through the same portion of his blood reserves that he had under a minute of forced exertion- forced to watch as Ryouma and Nui corrupted the world below him.

Viewing it had been strange- he could watch the world's events down to the smallest Ant despite being suspended from who knows how far up.

_*cue Ambiguous*_

And then there was an explosion.

Dirt and rock and snow and ice and metal- all of it went flying up at him.

At first, he thought it was a trick of that same perspective, but then his eye widened as he saw that all of that explosion's energy and debris was actually heading straight towards him from the "surface" of the planet.

"Crap Crap Crap!" Senketsu tried to peel himself away- but it just came way too fast for him to evade.

And then all of it broke through the barrier that Ryouma had created- and Senketsu was hit by the blast wave.

_**Unmei no ito wo tachikitta sono saki ni... **_

And then his single eye met up with twin green orbs- belonging to a Vespa Pilot who was very much frightened and afraid as her vehicle was thrown through the dimensional barrier out of her own world.

There were two unconscious passengers- and Senketsu acted before he even realized it.

He flung himself at the Vespa as it twisted under the pilot's controls- and he latched onto anything that stuck out before the shockwave continued to push them forwards through time and space.

The girl had no safe control with everything flying this way and that- not without her passengers getting flung out into who knows where- and so Senketsu stretched and tied himself around them- forming a makeshift seat belt to keep them in place.

The girl glanced backwards, and gave a wary grin- then she flew.

_**Senobishiteitanda **_  
_**Kutsuzure darake no semai sekai de **_

Left- right- she quickly pulled off stunts she knew could get her back in control now that she knew her passengers were safely attached.

_**RUNWAY wo aruku egao no uragawa **_  
_**Kakushita tsumori de **_

There were all kinds of broken ships and pieces of metal that flew ahead faster infront of them- and Fam Fan Fan- **[Sky Pirate]**- began using them as stepping stones to get ahead of the larger pieces of debris chasing after them.

_**Dakedo itsumo kimi ni wa **_

For a moment- they seemed to get out ahead of everything for a few moments- and Fam got her first look at the Multiverse at large.

_**Minukareteshimatteite **_

The occasional glowing strand of Green, Red, Blue, or Yellow energy pulsed around her- along with the random cloud of static.

_**Konna no wa hajimete de tomadou kedo **_

There were swirling solar systems of worlds and universes and branching timelines...

And then the debris wave was pushed forwards by what seemed to be a second shock wave.

_**Hoka no darenimo kikonasenai **_

Fam and Senketsu both yelped as the larger chunks suddenly broke apart into smaller chunks being flung forwards at them.

The wave caught up with them and seemed to throw everything off balance- but Fam grit her teeth and forced her Vespa to stabilize even as everything came crashing towards them.

_**Nandaka wakannai atsusa ga mune wo kogasu kara **_

And then they seemed to shoot through what seemed to be a preexisting debris field even as a Sun _**BLIP**_ed into existence in front of them.

Fam danced through the rocks even as the debris field continued to push forwards- and then she headed for the sun.

_**Unmei no ito taguriyoseta sono saki ni **_

With a slingshot of Gravity, they flung around the sun, leaving the debris field to crash into it and burn up in an instant.

_**Ima atarashii yoake ga kuru **_

It was too bad that that slingshot sent them hurtling straight for a planet that orbited that sun- and they flew straight into its atmosphere- something neither of them were sure the Vespa could withstand on its own.

Senketsu acted- flinging himself onto the front of the Vespa and putting himself _**onto**_ it, which surprised the girl still piloting the machine as he desperately tried to seal everyone inside underneath him so as to spare them from the heat of re-entry.

_**Kajikanda yubi de zutto sagashiteta **_

That painful experience burned away a fair portion of Senketsu's body- and seemed to fuse what remained onto the Vespa's cloth-like metal-weave shell- all within a few seconds due to their increase of speed.

_**Kirameku sekai no **_

When the flames disappeared- Fam found that the top bubble of protection that Senketsu had formed had burned away, revealing that their vespa was hurtling uncontrolled straight for an ocean... That was, if they didn't crash into the green plains leading up to it first.

_**Kotae wa itsudatte TEACUP no naka **_  
_**Utsutteitanda **_

With a yelp- Fam pulled up, trying to break as best as she could to slow them all down.

_**Yakedoshisou na ondo **_

Closer- closer everything was coming up too fast! Senketsu flinched as they barely cut across the top of a tree that flown up past them too fast to even see.

_**Amasugirushi nigasugiru **_

And then they saw a town of some kind- with a white flag with some red logo on it flying over one of the tallest buildings.

Senketsu and Fam both gasped and tried to pull up- and somehow, their combination of wills did just that-

_**Jibuntachi dake no FLAVOR nomihoshite **_

-The Vespa's engine pipes hit the tip of the flag-pole and set it vibrating from the high speed near impact.

_**Ano hi kimi ga oshiete kureta **_

Their speed was still too great- and their altitude was lowering even quicker now.

Fam narrowed her eyes, grit her teeth, and fired off both of the remaining harpoons on the Vespa's undercarriage in an attempt to slow themselves down.

_**Nandaka wakannai atsusa ga hoho wo tsutau kara **_

If it worked- neither of the two awake survivors of this sudden Exile could tell. All they could hope for was that they would hit the water instead of the dirt.

And quickly approaching that water was- the green plains that rapidly rose to meet them quickly gave way to sandy beaches and then-

_**Sorezore no omoi karamiatta sono saki ni **_

They were over the water, skimming along the sky blue surface trailing along a massive plume of water behind them-

_**Ima atarashii yoake ga kuru **_

And then friction and gravity finally won out- and the Vespa flipped head over tail and dropped all of its passengers into the water as its momentum finally crashed out.

**[NOW]**

**THE SPIRIT BASE_ _ _|**

Fam exhaled the deep breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in as she walked into the main room of the Spirit Base, and looked around.

It had been little over a month now since they had left Earth-3 following the defeat of one particularly tough Quartzmon enhanced Deboss Legion. The Kyoryugers had grown tired of NERV's oversight, and left.

In the corner by the fountain, Eri Lukari- **[Kyoryu Navy originally and now sometimes Kyoryu Silver]**- was playing her Violin; sitting next to her was Yui Kirigaya- **[Kyoryu Violet]**- sang along to the tune.

At the table was Inaba Strider- **[Kyoryu Black]**- currently chatting with his [Best-Friend-Who-Was-Practically-his-Sister], Shiro Stonesfield, who had hitched a ride off of Earth-3 on SpaceTrailmon, and transfered to Plezuon via a gift from Fam's old world.

Fam frowned at the thought of her Vespa once more.

Also at the table was Caleb's sister, Callie Grey- **[Kyoryu Cyan]**-, working on some project while she listened to them talk.

Nowhere in sight were their other current companions, nor the rest of the Kyoryugers.

Wait- there was a faint breeze just then-

_**ZAP!**_

With a flash of Blue Light, John Egbert **[Kyoryu Grey]** Appeared in his usual teleport.

"Woah, okay, this is different," he mused, "time line check? I'm hunting Lost Stones."

"You're a few months too late," Caleb said, walking in. This time the subtitle properly appeared, listing him as **[Kyoryu Red]**. "Like...Really a few months too late for that. We beat Deboss for good about a month ago."

"Ah, right, gotcha," John nodded, then paused. "Right, um... So, do you guys remember me ever coming back from Fam's world on a check?"

"You brought us a lot of ice cream," Fam said, "other than that, no."

"...Damn it, guess that means I'm taking you guys with me back there then," John grimaced.

"What's up?" Inaba asked, breaking off of his conversation with Shiro.

"Not sure exactly, but the Queen of Turan asked me to fetch Fam and bring her back," John answered. "It sounded pretty serious."

That, Fam thought, did not sound good.

* * *

**A.N.: I'm going to be doing something different here. AO3's version of this story is going to be merged with _Adventures in Babysitting_, while the Solo version of Fam's story will be on FFN, with _Babysitting_**** also separate from it. The reason for that is simply because FFN's cross-over tags are a bit too limited for this kind of anthology. The AO3 version will also contain snips that I won't be posting to FFN due to the nature of their content. (Mainly that I've got some song-segment-only sections planned that I think don't fly with FFN's rules.) ****That said, I hope you'll all enjoy what I've got set up for Fam's backstory. Hints have been placed in _Vamola! Kyoryuger_, but not the whole story. Fam's been a bit of an unreliable narrator as well, in some cases. Anyways, enough of my random ramblings. Time to Upload This! :D**


	2. Rescue

**"Gone Fishing."**

**Written by: Calum Traveler**

* * *

Senketsu was drowning.

Apparently, despite being living cloth, and being fused to a magical (As in, he had no clue how the thing worked and thus, Magic, despite whatever technology actually powered it) hover bike that managed to speed through reentry in as short of time as possible (Measured in seconds) and was definitely not organic at all... Apparently none of that mattered.

Senketsu felt like he was drowning, or rather... He felt like the Vespa's still-running engines were drowning, and thus that translated to his own lungs?

'Wait," Senketsu blinked, "I don't have lungs."

What was going on here?

And then there was a shadow- and a muted splash from above him.

Senketsu's eye looked up to see what looked like some kind of humanoid fish in a diving suit swimming down to reach the three girls that had been riding in the Vespa that had just crashed into what appeared to be an ocean.

Then there was some kind of turtle-boy followed by an actual human girl with orange hair down to her waist...

"Well," Senketsu mused, "at least they're getting rescued..."

And then a giant robot that looked like it had been inspired by some kind of stag beetle joined them- swimming towards him instead of the girls.

* * *

Fam gasped and choked for air as she was dragged to the surface. She spat out a little bit of water and then took in a few deep breaths.

"Woah! Easy there!" Hangyomon pleaded as she struggled in his grip. "You're alright! We got you out!"

Fam's eyes looked around in confusion as Millia and Giselle were brought up to the surface by the other two divers, ChibiKamemon and Mizuki.

"They're unconscious!" Mizuki yelled to Hangyomon. "We've gotta get them to shore!"

"Got it!" Hangyomon nodded, then turned to Fam and asked, "Can you swim?"

"Huh?" Fam blinked, even as DarkVolumon surfaced, holding the burnt and mangled Vespa in his arms. "What the-?"

"Great," Hangyomon grumbled. "A newbie." With a sigh, he said, "Kid, welcome to the Digital World. Where literally anything could be a living, breathing creature with awesome powers and multiple forms to themselves. I'm Hangyomon, that big lug is DarkVolumon, and the two pulling your friends to shore are ChibiKamemon and my girlfriend Mizuki."

"It's just a good thing we were out Fishing today, isn't it?" DarkVolumon asked in his standard "Evil-Tone" voice.

Fam squeaked at the sound.

"Don't mind him," Hangyomon laughed, "he does that for the laughs."

* * *

Senketsu was annoyed at how he was being dragged to the village by a rope pulled by a robot with an evil sounding voice. "Oi, could you even TRY to run over every single rock?" He asked.

The robot didn't hear him- instead dragging the Vespa Senketsu was fused to over another rock- which made the Kamui grimace in annoyance.

**[DarkVolumon; Robot; Pretends to be Evil for the LULz]**

Riding on DarkVolumon's shoulders were Fam and, as he'd learned their names were, Giselle and Millia, full names being withheld until they met "The King," whoever that was.

"Oiii!" cried a voice from the village entrance as they drew closer, "You found whatever that was that just buzzed the flag pole, didn't you?"

"YUP!" The orange haired girl, Mizuki, waved, "They splashed down not too far from where we were fishing."

**[Mizuki; General for Xros Heart;**  
**Also a Dolphinmon; Hobyist Fisherman]**

"Scared all the fish away, though," Hangyomon remarked. "That was QUITE the landing you made there, kid."

**[Hangyomon; Former Bagura Army;**  
**Long Time Xros Heart Member; Knows a good crash landing when he sees it.]**

"Er, Thanks?" Fam didn't sound so sure of that, and glanced over at Senketsu.

His lone eye, the only part that seemed animate now, tried its best to shrug.

By the way Fam just stared blankly, and quickly turned around, he was sure he failed at that. "I might need a mirror to practice these emotes," he grumbled before being dragged over another rock that bounced up and pinged against something sensitive underneath. "OW! Damn it, my undercarriage is sensitive! Watch where you're dragging me!"

Fam spoke up then at the sound, "Um, Mister Volumon sir?"

"Yes?" The Robot asked.

"Could you try to be a little more careful with my Vespa? It's going to be a pain repairing it as it is," Fam began.

"Fam," The blond girl, Millia, chided in a concerned tone, "I think we've got more important things to be dealing with than a busted up Vespa. Like the fact that we're being taken to see this worlds _**KING**_?"

**[Princess Milia il Velch Cutrettola Turan; Sister to Liliana il Grazioso Merlo Turan;  
Exiled head of government for the Refuge Government of Turan]**

"Hey, I'm trusting you to deal with the Politics," Fam replied, "I've gotta focus on getting us back home in one piece. Can't do that with a busted Vespa." She glanced back over at Senketsu and added silently, _'Also, I'm pretty sure that thing that attached itself to it is alive.'_

"Fam's right in that respect, though. Repairs are going to be really hard just going by looks," Giselle began. "It looks like we flew through a sun or something. What kind of explosion does that?"

Fam and Senketsu both paled slightly at that remark as they remembered their near hit with the sun in the sky above.

"Something wrong?" Hangyomon caught that changed look on Fam's face.

"Er-" Fam shook her head, "No. It's nothing."

"Nothing my eye!" Senketsu yelped, "We had to slingshot around that bloody thing just to get here!" Nobody heard him. "Okay, either this is going to get really old really quick, or I'm going to have a _**LOT**_ of fun with this."

They finally go close enough to the gate to see the man who had waved at them. Yellow eyes, crimson hair, grinning like an idiot.

"Yo! I'm Hinomoto, Tagiru," He greeted them, "welcome to the Village of Smiles."

**[Formerly Akashi, Tagiru (Married into Wife's family);**  
**Time Traveler; Former Digimon Hunter; Xros Heart Founder]**

"Greetings," Millia began, "it's a pleasure to be here. Although, I wish there could have been better circumstances. We were in the middle of a battle until just now..." She frowned. "Although, I'm a bit confused as to how we got here...Wherever here is, that is?"

"Ah," Tagiru nodded sagely, "sounds like a familiar problem we've run into in the past. You got caught up in a Time Storm."

"Time storm?" Fam and Senketsu asked at the same time, though only Senketsu knew it.

"Ah, well, see, there's this guy, Quartzmon, also goes by the name Ryouma-"

"RYOUMA!?" Senketsu reacted so loudly that he actually managed to make the Vespa's engine stutter in an attempt to start.

The noise made everyone look back at him in surprise.

"Great, now the engine's acting up," Giselle sighed.

Fam just stared at Senketsu, who tried to remain as still as he possibly could.

"Did I really just do that?" He asked himself.

Everyone turned back to Tagiru as he continued on, "Anyways, long story short he basically blew up our home planet, forcing the survivors to move here to the Digital World... That was about... Eh, Three years ago, maybe? I kind of have a hard time remembering, since I left right when that happened when I was sixteen, got sent back in time, had a couple of kids, came back through time travel..." He shook his head, "Man, Time travel gives you a headache when you try to reason it all out."

"So...we're on a completely different world?" Millia asked.

"Eyup," Tagiru nodded. "That's about the gist of it. Anyways, King Sylen won't be back for another day or so. You girls can rest up until then."

* * *

And then Senketsu was shoved under a large cloth overhang and left to dry off while everyone else went off somewhere else.

He tried to move, and couldn't.

Senketsu cursed, "This is worse than being a uniform. At least when I was a Uniform I could move around on my own."

He tried to move again...

"Woooaah!"_**THUD.**_

...And fell on his already crumpled side.

"Damn it."

* * *

**"Magicka"**

**Written By: Calum Traveler**

* * *

"Who's _BRIGHT IDEA_ was it-" Davis Motomiya **[Digi-Destined; Occasional Time Traveler; Optional Bodyguard For Hire]** yelled to the winds as he rode on Imperialdramon's shoulders- "To let the **ONE GIRL WHO HAD NO EXPERIENCE WITH THESE THINGS** decide _**QUARTZMON'S FATE!?"**_

Behind them was a giant twisting tower that reminded one of a certain Beast Spirit of Metal from a certain Frontier timeline...

Except that instead of giant orbs with creepy faces painted on them, there were giant crystalline gems holding countless Magical Girls trapped inside, siphoning their despair into the center of it all, Quartzmon's latest disguise.

He was presently disguised as a small cat like creature with pink fur and extraordinarily long eyes. His name this universe? "**[Q-B or Not Q-B]**," the creature laughed in a rather cute sounding voice that did little to show it's true nature, "THAT IS MY QUESTION!"

And with that- he flung out bursts of energy from the massive crystalline orbs straight at the scattered Xros Heart members.

"DAMN IT!" The lone **[Magical Girl]** who had managed to evade all of this swore as she dove for cover behind a ruined wall- "Why did I have to get a botched timeline five minutes into awakening?"

"I dunno-" OmegaShoutmon **[King of the Digital World]** then yelped as he ducked under a burst of magical energy- "Why the hell did Quartzmon hijack the body of a _**FREAKIN' CAT!?**_"

"Kyubey is..." The magical girl finched as a fire hydrant exploded in the distance- "Complicated."

"Complicated my shiny metal-" Imperialdramon Shifted into **[Fighter Mode!]** and leveled his arm cannon at the center of the whirling mass of energy- **"POSITRON LASER!"**

The laser beam shot out and crashed into a magical forcefield- and dispersed without incident.

"HAHAHA!" Q-B laughed- "You'll have to try better than that, Xros Heart!"

"It's just like Parallelmon all over again," Davis grit his teeth.

"Parallelmon was a cakewalk compared to this!" yelled a familiar looking VictoryGreymon from above. "VICTORY SWO-"

"NUH UH!" Q-B stuck his tongue out as another orb let off a burst of fire at the VictoryGreymon- knocking them down into the ground.

"Anyone got any ideas!?" OmegaShoutmon inquired with a quite panicked tone.

"We all die and hope for a better timeline next loop?" The magical girl offered, summoning a hand-gun from out of thin air to check it's clip.

"Not going to happen," OmegaShoutmon shot it down in an instant.

"AHAHAHAHA!" Q-B laughed manically. "You guys are so pathetic! I can't believe the other me's kept getting killed by you lot!"

"What does that say about you?!" Davis spat at Quartzmon.

Q-B's eyes narrowed and he growled- "Alright- just for that You're Gonna DIE!"

And then a whole barrage of lasers shot out of the crystal orbs and smashed into Imperialdramon Fighter Mode- blasting him back into Paildramon and then down into DemiVmon and Minnowmon- leaving Davis to fall towards the ground without much assistance.

"WOAAAH!"

_**CRASH!**_

Thankfully- he landed in a tree, which broke his fall by quite a lot.

"Okay..." He breathed, reaching for his goggles to make sure they were intact, "Let's not try that again."

Q-B broke down into another fit of laughter.

"Yo! Vmon! Wormmon!" Davis called down to the In-Training stage digimon, "You alright down there?"

"Jusht Fhine, Davish...!" The blue blob that was DemiVmon groaned from where he lay, "Wouah! Ah shmell...Ahpplesh?"

"I'll be fine...!" Minnowmon replied.

"I'm Open to Suggestions here," OmegaShoutmon said again, "anything that doesn't involve us getting killed?"

The Magical girl sighed, "Madoka caused all of this with her wish, didn't she? If we can talk her down, she might be able to undo it."

"Homura, that's a BRILLIANT idea!" OmegaShoutmon grinned.

And then Davis brought up the one flaw in the plan: "So where the hell did Madoka run off to!?"

Q-B let loose another laser blast that blew up yet another fire hydrant, and sent some poor black cat flying to its demise.

"Ah- speaking of Narrative Causality," Homura said with a flat tone.

* * *

Q-B laughed as he surveyed the damaged city-scape beneath him.

Nothing could escape his all-seeing presence! Nothing could escape his all-powerful laser blasts! Nothing could get through his all-protecting MAGIC SHIELD!

Naturally- it was then that a giant tidal wave of water fell down on him from above.

"PAH! BPFFFHT! _**WHAT!?**_"

Q-B glanced around in anger and rage- eyes practically burning for all the water just dumped on him.

"WHO DARES~!?"

**"Yo."**

Q-B looked up, and then his eyes widened in horror as a massive water dragon, with **[Denizen Cetus/General Kotone]** in the center, descended upon him.

"Aw Cra-"

_**KASPLOOOSH!**_

And then the Water Dragon Swallowed him whole, and dragged him straight down towards the ground.

If he got there, that was.

Kotone's eyes glowed with a shimmer of light as she threw a punch through the Water Dragon she'd summoned and then-

**"DECOMPRESSION!"**

-Poor Q-B was sent flying as the water dragon dispersed, and he suddenly had a very serious case of the Bends.

It also didn't help much that he was sent spinning in a spiral as well.

_**CRASH.**_

As Q-B struggled to pull himself out of the crater he'd landed in, he caught sight of what made his shield fail.

There was the girl he'd convinced Xros Heart were the bad guys... That "Madoka" girl who was supposedly the most powerful girl in this universe...

Cradling that black cat to her chest as she glared daggers at him while yelling: "You said you wouldn't hurt anybody!"

Q-B stumbled at that declaration, and felt the powers he'd drained from the gems above returning back to where they came from... "Uh oh..." His eyes widened as Homura walked towards him, priming the gun she had in hand. "Hey, um, look! Let's be reasonable here! Can't we talk this out?"

Homura narrowed her eyes and said one simple word:

"No."

**BANG.**

* * *

**"AAaaa!"**

**Written by: Calum Traveler  
**

* * *

**[THEN]**

"DA DAH DAA DADADA DAAAAAAH!" Mankanshoku, Mako, cried out as she held up a box set of VHS tapes. "STARWARS!" read the title in an old, worn label that had been written over in marker.

"What," Ryuuko stared flatly at the box.

"Well, Senketsu doesn't have his memories, right?" Mako began, grinning brightly, "Sooo! Let's bring them all back by watching some old classics!"

"Is this really necessary?" Senketsu asked. "It's not like I probably watched these things before I lost my memories." Ryuko repeated it, with some slight rephrasing.

"But if he doesn't remember, then how does he know he never watched it in the first place?" Mako asked, grinning.

"Well," Ryuuko began-

**[NOW]**

Fam kicked at the broken wing on the Vespa, and Senketsu yelped in pain as his attention came back to focus on the world. "Alright, wake up you!"

Had he drifted off? Senketsu blinked a few times in rapid succession. He hadn't realized that he'd done that.

"Look," Fam got down on her knees and looked him firmly in the eye with her two own green orbs, "One blink for yes, two for no, got it?"

Senketsu blinked once, slowly and deliberately. "Yes, I got it," He added, even though he knew she couldn't hear him.

"Alright, simple question: Are. You. Evil?"

"Evil?!" Senketsu glared at her in annoyance. "I just saved you and your friends lives and the first thing you have to ask me is if I'm EVIL!?"

"Yes, or, No," Fam said slowly, and surely.

Senketsu sighed, and then blinked twice in answer, "No, I'm not evil. I'm just a school uniform well out of his league."

"Alright, next question," Fam continued, "Did you send me here?"

"What?" It was such a confusing question that he blinked many times in confusion.

"Wait wait! One or two, please," Fam insisted.

"No," Senketsu said flatly as he blinked twice. "I just hitched a ride, that's all."

"Alright, alright," Fam took a few moments to compose her thoughts. "...I really don't have anything else to ask, really. I was kind of hinging on those first two things being 'yes'."

"Well thanks for the vote of confidence," Senketsu narrowed his eye at her. "What's with you anyways? Would my being evil really have been that much of a boon to your day?"

No reply to that, but Fam continued on, "Geeze, look at me. Talking to something that attached itself to my Vespa and hoping it was the thing that sent me here. Graaah... why does my life have to be so difficult some times?" Fam rolled back onto her back and stared up at the sky. "Rescue a Princess? Sure. Can do. Watch as her kingdom gets obliterated by giant rock towers with creepy faces? Yeah, done that! Not happy about it, but done it! Catch the Reaper? Nope. Got caught instead, and then told to catch Fifteen skyfish! Sure, I can do that. Did it in a heartbeat, seemed like... I only even really remember catching five of 'em, really. Everything else was just a blur..."

"And that lead to you getting thrown out of your world, how exactly?" Senketsu knew enough narrative causality to see where this was going. "What? Did the big bad empire decide you were too rebel for their liking?"

Fam was silent for a little bit longer before she sighed again and said, "Stupid Ades Federation... Stupid Lilly... Stupid Rock faces..."

"Are you talking to yourself, Fam?" **[Giselle Collette Vingt; Fam's** **Best-Friend/Like-A-Sister/Navi]** asked as she, and an older woman with green hair and golden eyes, walked over, each carrying boxes of random parts and materials that had been scrounged up.

Senketsu went as still as he could- either out of instinct, wanting to play this up for as much as it was worth, or just plain old fear.

"No, just the Vespa," Fam replied, sitting up.

"Talking to oneself is fine," the woman said as she put the box down, and then held her hand out to introduce herself, "I'm Chou, Tagiru's my husband."

**[Hinomoto, Chou; Tagiru's her Husband; ****Wields a mean rocket hammer;  
Can catch a spinning object without forcing it to lose momentum; Time Traveler]**

"Hi," Fam took the woman's hand and shook it. "So what do you have here?"

"Potential replacement parts for the Engine," Giselle replied as she put her own crate down. "It took a while to find anything close to our specifications, but there's probably something in there."

"Oh great," Senketsu lamented, "now I'm going to be put under the needle in a less-than-literal sense."

"Sounds like fun," Fam replied. "So where's Millia at?"

"Chatting with the Denizens," Chou answered.

"The who now?" Fam frowned at the unfamiliar term.

"Denizens," Chou repeated, "this world isn't rulled by a Monarchy despite having a King. The Denizens are the ones that oversee and maintain the balance of the Digital World in place of the Code Crown."

"The Code...Crown," Fam blinked. "Really?"

"Let me guess," Senketsu began, "Super Powerful Artifact that had to be destroyed for everyone's own good lest bad people would use it for evil?"

"It was the thing that maintained Balance while the Denizens were absent," Chou explained. "The Denizen Hephaestus created it, but then had to destroy it personally due to many bad people wanting control of it."

"Got it in one," Senketsu rolled his eye.

"There are only two Denizens on world right now," Chou continued on. "Hephaestus died when the Code Crown was destroyed, and Cetus is off world with Kotone and the King."

"Who are the other two?" Fam asked.

"Echidna and Typheus," Giselle supplied. "They look a lot like kids just like us... except a few years older."

"Yeah, Kiriha and Nene are about in their Twenties now," Chou nodded, then paled slightly.

"Something wrong?" Giselle asked.

"No, just thinking about how Time Travel made me older than my friends," Chou pouted, ''I was just a year younger than them when I went back, now I'm a lot older... Nyaaah...!"

Fam and Senketsu both echoed the same thought at once, "Time Travel, huh?"

* * *

**"False Alarm."**

**Written by: Calum Traveler.**

* * *

In the dead of space above the Digital World- with a flash of light and a loud BANG of sound- a SpaceTrailmon emerged from a temporal jump...

And nearly crashed headlong into a fragment of debris that had been ejected from Fam's world.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Hideaki Mashimo **[PILOT; Quartzmon Hunter; Husband; Father]** yelped in surprise as he quickly spun the controls to evade.

"Well that's different," Rina Mashimo **[CAPTAIN; Sharp Shooter; Wife; Mother]** mused as she looked out the window to follow the trail backwards from where it came. "Looks like a lot of this came flying in through a time rift. I wonder what happened?"

"Let's radio in," Hideaki suggested. "Maybe the others know?"

"Sounds like a good idea," Rina nodded, and went to do that when an alarm sounded off of the console. "Ah...and then there's Merry..." She giggled as she silenced it with a single button, "Probably woke up because of that sudden jerk just now."

"Probably," Hideaki nodded, then said, "go take care of her, I'll call in."

"Alright," Rina nodded, and skipped out of her chair to the door, and then down the small steps to the hallway that lead to most of the crew-and-sometimes-passenger quarters.

"We hit something?" Davis asked as he popped his head out from one of the bunks.

"Barely avoided it, actually," Rina said, continuing down into the Kitchen where King Sylen **[A.K.A.: OmegaShoutmon]** sat conversing with Kotone.

"Did we hit something?" Kotone asked.

"No," Davis answered for Rina as he followed her into the kitchen, "just avoided hitting something though."

"Thank you, fellow Vmon destined," Rina said with approval as she navigated for the stairs leading down to the common room, where, indeed, the soft sounds of a baby's cry could be heard. "C'mere Merry..." Rina said as she went over to the crib that had been put up, and reached in to pull the girl out so she could hold her.

**[Merry Mashimo; baby. To-Become Kyoryu Blue At Age 16.]**

"Shoosh, it'll be alright," Rina held the baby up to her shoulder and patted the girl's back in a soothing pattern. "Your dad just flew us around a giant rock, that's all... There's nothing to be afraid of..."

* * *

"So the giant trail of rocks are from another world?" Sylen heard Hideaki ask over the radio as he and Davis entered the room.

_"Ah, yeah," _Tagiru's voice came through from the other side. _"Three girls and what we think is a new machine type Digimon crashed into the lake next to the village. From what we've gathered from them, looks like Quartzmon's got his towers all over the place. Used them to blow up the whole of a nation's capital city."_

"Well _that's_ not good," Sylen remarked with a chuckle.

_"Well, duh, Captain Obvious,"_ Tagiru laughed at that. _"Good to hear you're back in one piece. A bit early though, isn't it, Sylen-san?"_

"Oi oi, I'll have none of that," Sylen said, "I'll have you know we only really survived because Quartzmon killed Shrodinger's Cat."

_"You mean the paradox experiment with the box and the-?"_

"Yeah-" Davis interupted. "That."

"Annnyways," Hideaki coughed to get their attention. "Trailmon's scanners show that there's a steady debris field leading back to _some_ world, most likely these kids' by the looks of things. But it doesn't look like the path will be open for very long. All of the debris is throwing itself into the sun pretty quickly. I'd say we've got another day at most before it's all gone."

"So either we mount a return mission while the path is still viable, or we wait until it's gone to try to find that world again," Sylen made it sound as if there was actually a choice. "How long until we can land and get those girls onboard?"

"Not too long," Hideaki said, checking the screens infront of him. "I mean, we're only really hanging out here to observe it for now. I can get us down at the Village in under a few minutes. But we're low on fuel, so that'd take us a while...Yeah, I don't think it's going to be good if we land and take off again, time wise, I mean."

"We're also going to need a team," Davis said. "A lot of us are tired out from that last fight, so shore leave's inorder for 'em... Who's in port right now?"

_"The _Good Friday's_ been docked since yesterday, repairs mostly from their last excursion,"_ Tagiru reported. _"Yuu and Corone left to track down an Emergency Signal on the Wrister Channel a couple of days ago, they took the Starmonz and Wisemon with them. And you know Revolomon and Ballistamon..."_

"Well, there goes Xros Ten," Shoutmon grumbled. "Are Akari and Kaiyumi back from their mission yet?"

_"They're on the _Friday_ right now so, yeah,"_ Tagiru paused, _"no sign of Taiki or Sally, though."_

"Figures," Sylen grumbled. "Quartzmon's stepping up his game. I think we've really narrowed the field down quite a bit. We're so close to his endgame, I can just taste it... We'll run into them soon enough, I just know it."

_"Anyways,"_ Tagiru continued, _"do you want me to tell Olegmon to get the _Friday_ Prepped?"_

"Yeah," Sylen nodded, "and tell him to bring up extra fuel cells for SpaceTrailmon. We're going to need them."

_"Gotcha, Tagiru out!"_ and the raido went silent.

"Hideaki," Sylen ordered, "I want you to monitor the progress of the bridge, and any sign of losing that world, we _jump_. Got it?"

"Got it," Hideaki nodded.

"What about people who need shore leave?" Davis asked.

"We'll send them down in the shuttles," Sylen said. "We can't risk losing this bridge... Something tells me this next world is going to be _important._"

"You think so, huh?" Davis asked.

"Call it a gut feeling," Sylen smirked.

* * *

**A.N.: The best part about doing a compilation of story segments like this is that I get to just do random segments, without needing to tell a complete story, and then put them up as is. You get to pick up on the context from there! Also, I'm having Waaaay too much fun with KLK's subtitles. :33 ALSO: just realized that I might have some timeline issues here with the original draft, but that's what the rewrite's for. I should probably get back to that... **


	3. Short but Sweet

**"Blumenkranz"**

**Written By: Calum Traveler**

* * *

Quartzmon- in his Chimera disguise- observed the world from just on the other side of the universal wall.

This "Life Fiber" Being could potentially be very useful for his future plans, and seeing the things that even an item made of 10% fibers could do...

It made him shudder at the possibilities.

The Kiryuin mannor was an interesting place, Ragyo, owner of this "REVOCS" company... was a disturbing individual even by his standards. But the daughters... oh was there ever potential with the daughters.

The baseline events he'd observed thus far- as was per standard operating procedure for a recently discovered universe- were showing that miss Satsuki would definitely betray her mother eventually... but the other one...

"Wait," Quartzmon frowned, surveying the manor once over from his cloud of time-static. "Where's the blonde?"

"Right here!" Said a pipsqueak's voice from behind him.

And Quartzmon nearly leaped out of his skin as Harime, Nui, somehow sat on the edge of his cloud, kicking her feet lazily over the edge to some tune only she could hear.

"WHAT!? HOw- What!?" Quartzmon yelled in surprise.

Damn it- he hadn't even seen how events would unfold without his interference, and now here the youngest girl had actually found and interacted with him- somehow having TELEPORTED ONTO HIS INTANGIBLE CLOUD OF STATIC.

"You're funny when you're loud," the girl- she really couldn't have been any older than five- giggled. GIGGLED. At his internal monologue.

As Quartzmon's heart calmed down, he stared at Nui and finally asked, "Alright, How did you get up here? How are you reading my thoughts!?"

"Um... I got board of Momma putting dresses on me, so I left a copy behind and went to find someone fun!" Nui replied, smiling all the way, her blue eyes shining with that delight that only a pure, innocent child could have...

About as pure and innocent as a girl who broke all establishments of the fourth wall COULD be, he supposed.

"Momma always said I was special," Nui added.

Quartzmon narrowed his eyes, then wrote on a pad of paper that he KNEW was well outside of the dimension. Things that he knew she really _Shouldn't Know_.

"Yes, no, fried eggs, and YOU'RE SO FUNNY!" Nui answered each and every question with glee.

"...Damn you're good," Quartzmon narrowed his eyes. "Alright. Fine. You'll live. Just so long as you forget I ever met you and you act exactly as you would in baseline, alright?"

"No way!" Nui said with that same innocent tone- and yet somehow put enough force behind it that it shut even Quartzmon's brain down for a few pathetic seconds.

"Buh-wuh?" he blinked.

"Can we be best friends now?" Nui asked.

"NO!" Quartzmon insisted. "I'm much too old to be your 'best friend'!"

"How old?" Nui asked.

"Older than time it self- Thanks to time travel," Quartzmon quickly tried shutting this down as he moved his cloud down to the manor so that he could quickly push her through a window or something and hopefully prevent any corruption to the Baseline timeline. "You happy now?"

"You sound lonely," Nui somehow teleported onto his head the moment he actually found an open window. "I know! Let's be tangle buddies!"

Quartzmon's brain was- at that moment- a record that had caught on a needle and broke into a thousand pieces.

**"[DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT EVEN MEANS!?]"** He yelled so loud that giant subtitles appeared to match every word.

"Hm...Nope!" Nui just jumped on them and started walking along the long line of characters. "Just that it bugs you!"

Quartzmon stared at Nui as she walked along those very intangible things. This girl was simply Impossible. Just... SO MUCH IMPOSSIBLE. Finally, he managed to get hold of his thoughts and said, "Look, kid-"

"Nui!" She corrected.

"-Look, Kid," he continued once more, no way he was going to be on first name basis with this kid. "Look, I'm _flattered,_ and honestly somewhat impressed by your impressive fourth wall leaning skills here-" He said that even as Nui picked up the Question Mark from his previous Subtitle display and started waving it around like an umbrella- "but all I'm here to do is observe your baseline timeline and then make a decision of whether or not to intervene."

"That's silly!" Nui grabbed the Exclamation mark and pointed it at him like a sword. "You're already changing things just by talking to me!"

"**[YOU'RE THE ONE WHO STARTED TALKING TO ME FIRST, KID!]**" A new set of subtitles appeared, replacing the old ones- and Nui hopped onto them without missing a step.

"So?" Nui asked.

Quartzmon face palmed. "Okay, look. See. That's exactly the problem here. The longer you're here talking to me the more likely it is this timeline's going to go off the rails."

"But that's what you want, isn't it?" Nui asked, leaning forwards and bringing up the hem of her skirt in that cute way only little kids could do. "Going off the rails is so much fun!"

"Yes, I agree," Quartzmon frowned, "but look, kid, the thing is here that I'm usually the one in control of the off the rails thing."

"Doesn't that mean you're just changing the rails that they're on in the first place?" Nui asked.

And that got him.

Quartzmon was well and truly tongue tied.

So he did what he did best.

He grabbed Nui off of the subtitles, shoved her through the open window, closed it, and then teleported ten timelines away before she even could blink.

Coward. That's what he was. Couldn't even stand the tormenting lines of a little girl even after he'd absconded to a safe distance and several thousand years and many, MANY timeline divergences later.

It was when he found a later-timeline baseline of that universe again that he was reminded of this fact.

He watched as the little girl that had argued so perfectly against him willingly cut her own head off at her "Momma's" order with arms that were not her own, and even missing an eye...

No.

How could such a brilliant mind just..._listen_?

Unquestioningly LISTEN and cut her own head off?

And then she was gone- absorbed into that monstrosity that was a "the ultimate Kamui"...

It was this Quartzmon, and this Quartzmon alone who saw this event and flinched.

He realized his mistake, and decided that he would correct it.

The moment after the older him shoved Nui through the window, he was there to catch her.

She looked up questioningly at him, and he replied, "I've given it some thought, and you're right. I have been just changing the rails to something different..." He then said. "I think I want to go and make sure that the rails of this timeline are going to break so hard that nobody's going to know what hit them. You in?"

"Sounds fun! Does that mean we're friends now?" Nui asked.

"Less friends and more...partners in crime," Quartzmon smirked. "How does that sound?"

"Really fun!" Nui grinned.

"First things first, though, some ground rules," He said as he put her down.

"_Okaaay_," she replied.

The first thing he did was play the roll of the 'imaginary friend', only less imaginary and more "Invisible."

It drove the old bat insane whenever he would do something silly behind her, and it made Nui crack up laughing.

Of all the changes this simple action rippled out, there was one really dramatic one.

Ragyo stopped focusing as much attention on Satsuki, thus allowing her more freedom to build up an even greater resistance to the REVOCS plan, as she grew more and more frustrated with her pet-project's sudden change in behavior.

Every time Ragyo tried something to reign Nui in line, Quartzmon would sabotage it either by simply talking to Nui, or by doing something else sneaky.

Slowly, but surely, he and Nui built their own plan for stopping Ragyo's plans to cover the world up... And nobody was the wiser.

* * *

**"Concessions are in order."**

**Written By: Calum Traveler.**

Dogold walked into the storage room to see Fam turning over the Mind-Swap Battery in her hand as she stared at the machine he recognized from her memories as a Vespa.

"Thinking about trading places with something?" Dogold asked.

Fam jumped, and, was it his imagination, or did the Vespa's single eye seem to- wait, no, there was that memory too. The Vespa was _**Alive.**_

Suddenly, Dogold felt a twinge of sympathy for the being that was stuck to the machine. "You okay, kid?" He asked.

"Geeze, Dogold, don't scare me like that," Fam said after catching her breath.

"You do realize that it's hard _not_ to be stealthy in here, right?" Dogold asked.

"Yeah, something like that..." Fam muttered, even if it didn't make sense.

"You seem distracted," Dogold said.

"Yeah, well...before I never had a way to know what this thing was thinking... 'scept for that one time, and even then, it was more of just... names of things, you know?" Fam held the battery up, "Then we made this. Literally any time I wanted to, I could just switch places with it, and we'd be able to talk. For the first time in... I actually have a chance now to put some pieces together."

"You think it might be from the same world as Nui?" Dogold asked.

"Oh, I know it is," Fam said, "I already asked."

The Vespa blinked in confirmation, and Dogold chuckled. "So what's the hold back?"

"I wouldn't want to put anyone into that prison..." Fam said, "not after...you know. Everything we went through."

"Being exploded apart into tiny pieces was _**not**_ pleasant, I'll tell you that," Dogold agreed. "But hey, it's not like I haven't been an immobile piece of metal before."

"I couldn't ask you to do that..." Fam frowned.

"Ask? Ha. I'm volunteering. Besides, with that battery, we can just swap back and forth if we want to," Dogold gave a smile. "Like you said, nobody deserves to be in that kind of prison... And besides, if it turns out this thing is one of the good guys, then we'll just clone it a body like you did for me."

"You realize if we did that, we'd have to head back to NERV, right?" Fam asked.

"Ah, right..." Dogold scratched at the back of his head. "Hnm...didn't think about that, did I?"

* * *

Merry was the second-to-last to teleport back into the Spirit Base, carrying a large tan trench-coat over her shoulder, and a pair of Strider-Grade Sunglasses over her eyes. She was also presently dressed up in a blue pin-stripe suit, for some unknown reason.

**[Merry Mashimo; Age 17; Kyoryu Blue;**  
**Certified Nightmare Eater]**

"Yo!" She grinned, "what'd I miss?"

"We're heading to Fam's world," Yumeji Tsurugi **[Kyoryu Green]** explained, "apparently something's up."

"Sweeet," Merry grinned, "Last time I went to Fam's world I was...what? Five? I can't even remember."

With a blip of light- Roxy Phexis **[Kyoryu Pink]** teleported in behind Merry, nearly pushing her off of the teleport pad. "Woah! Sorry! I'm not late, am I?"

"No, that should be just about everyone," Inaba said as he stood up and went over to a screen, "Alright, Yui, we're all aboard now."

* * *

Inside Plezuon's cockpit Kyoryu Violet stood at the ready. "Alright then," She turned to Kyoryu Silver, Eri, and nodded. "Throw away!"

"BRAVE IN!" Silver activated a +1 battery, and then threw it outside.

**_GABURINCHO! OVERCHAAAAARGEEE!_**

And then Chibi-Bragigas landed in her arms with a flash of light and a teleport.

* * *

The Spirit Base shook slightly at the change in scale.

"Man, I'm never going to get used to that," Merry grumbled.

* * *

And then- Plezuon shot out of the lake she had been hiding in, aiming straight for atmospheric exit.

All over the World for years to come, people would debate the existence of 'Mecha Loch Ness' and whether or not the photographs and video were faked.

In the end, the one thing that everyone agreed on was that the triple flash of light followed by a **_ZYUUU**_**OOOON!_**_ was clearly inspired by the _Back To The Future_ movies...

"C'mon, Sam! You've gotta agree that out of _**EVERYTHING**_ we've seen, Mecha Loch ness is probably the most realistic thing out of them all!" one Dean Winchester argued as he opened the drivers side door to a shiny black Impala.

"No way, absolutely not," the brother, Sam, argued in return as he opened the passenger door. "Hoax, 100%."

...Or not.

* * *

**"Charged."**

**Written by Calum Traveler.**

* * *

Kuuko Hinomoto sat on her bed in her room in her house in the city of Tokyo-3 on the planet Earth-3.

She was sitting patiently, and calmly, staring at the MP3 player that was currently plugged into the wall and charging up.

She glanced at the desk clock. **3:05 P.M.**

She looked at the Battery Charge level. **95%.**

Silence, that was all that was heard as Kuuko waited on her bed in her room in her house in the City of Tokyo-3 on the planet Earth-3.

Another glance at the clock, no change.

Kuuko took a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly.

She looked at the MP3 player. **96%.**

Kuuko reached up for the scrunchy holding the left side of her hair in a pig-tail, and messed with it for a few moments.

She looked to the clock. **3:07 P.M.**

Kuuko looked around her room, taking in the sights of every poster on the walls, and read every single title of every single book on her small bookshelf that was sitting next to her bed, in her room, in her house, in the city, of Tokyo-3, on the planet, that was called, Earth-3.

Kuuko sniffed, sitting there for a few more precious moments...

Then the MP3 player beeped as the charge completed- and Kuuko raced across the room, scooped up the MP3-player, detached it from the cord, and then _**ZAP**_.

She was gone...

For all of five seconds as the bed room door opened and Kuuko Hinomoto, several days before her disappearance via Doomed Delorean, walked in, carrying a book bag over her shoulder.

_**ZAP.**_

Kuuko fell three centimeters down onto the lounge chair in the Spirit Base, MP3 player in hand, already with ear-buds attached and plugged into her ears.

It was then that Merry Mashimo teleported in, saying, "Yo! What'd I miss?"

Kuuko didn't hear it, and barely felt the Spirit Base shaking as she listened to her favorite songs.

And the reason for all of that effort?

At some point on some random world in some random timeline- Kuuko had lost her charging cable.

What a clever (Albeit lazy) use of Quantum Leaping Powers!

* * *

**A.N.: Short segments here. I'm pretty much writing these flow-of-consciousness. Also; yes. Nui and Ryouma's first meeting was as creepy to write as it no doubt was to read.  
**


	4. Troll la Troll

**"Bent out of Shape"**

**Written By: Calum Traveler**

* * *

Beast Tamer Silica, once known as Keiko, Ayano to an Earth many years earlier, stared at the broken flag pole on Aincrad's exterior in confusion.

Aincrad had passed through its fair share of scrapes over the years, so some damage to the exterior of Aincrad's walls wasn't completely unexpected...

What was unexpected was a scorch mark next to the bent pole, looking suspiciously like a tire tread.

The mark and the bend in the pole were old- she could tell that much... But what had caused it?

She frowned, and leaned back in the air on her glowing wings. It was impossible, really. How could a car- or a motorcycle- or anything really- drive across the outside surface of Aincrad, bend a pole, and leave nobody the wiser.

How long ago had this happened? In what timeline? What universe?

Silica tried to remember some encounter with cars, or anything with flying wheels... And found she could remember nothing.

With a sigh, she turned to fly back into Aincrad- whatever had bent that pole wasn't worth getting bent out of shape about over...

Silica stopped- her eyes twitched for a moment at her own internal dialogue- and then made a note never to speak a word of it to anyone else before resuming her flight back inside.

* * *

**"Game Logic"**

**Written by Calum Traveler**

* * *

"THEY LEFT!?" Kirigaya, Asuna, the White Flash, and one of SAO's 'clearers', yelled in surprise as Commander Ikari, Shinji, covered his ears from said outburst.

"Ah, yeah," He said with a faint, nervous smile, "didn't you get the broadcast?"

"We got it," Kirigaya, Kazuto, better known as "Kirito The Black Swordsman" in most circles, replied. "She just wanted to yell a bit."

"Couldn't you stop them from running off on their own!?" Asuna asked, poking a finger at Shinji's chest- suspiciously right at his heart. "Wasn't it your job to supervise them!?"

"They gave us a legal two weeks notice, signed the documents and everything, even for the Voltasaurs," Shinji explained. "Abused time travel to do it, yeah, so we only got it right as they left, but still, it's perfectly legal. Terezie vetted it and everything."

Kirito raised an eyebrow, "Miss psycho lawyer who threw a restraining order against her husband to keep him from even speaking his own children's names?"

"She was pretty mad when she read through it all," Shinji said. "I think we can safely assume Yui wrote up the paperwork, though. There was a lot of reclassification paperwork retroactively filed in our systems too- there from the beginning, just that we were unaware of it. Apparently we were paying the Voltasaurs for their service, instead of actually owning them like we did the Evangelions. guess what we were paying them in?"

"What?" Asuna asked.

"Voltasaur-Bite sized Sandwiches." Asuna thought it over for a moment, then laughed at the seriousness of the way Shinji had said that; even Kirito cracked a smile.

"That's my girl," he beamed.

"I know it's what they want," Asuna said after a moment, "but isn't there a way we can track them? Maybe bring them back with a teleport?"

"Callie's work, I'm afraid," Shinji shook his head. "Completely rewrote the teleportation code, had John install it retroactively. She severed the link straight from their end. She also somehow disabled Plezuon's temporal ID tag, so we can't even track what timelines they're jumping to."

"They really worked to escape, didn't they?" Kirito mused. "I wonder what they're after."

"After?" Asuna asked.

"Why else would they up root suddenly?" Kirito asked, then added, "What reasons did we have in SAO to clear the game? And after that...? Life became relativly normal for us, not really a death game any more, but instead something else... What did they see during that final fight that made them want to leave?"

Shinji slapped his hand to his forehead with a groan that lead into, "Damn it, Nui!"

"Who?" Asuna asked.

"It was around the same time Yuu went to Aincrad, but before the King came to my Earth," Shinji explained. "There was a girl named Harime, Nui from that time that Quartzmon revived during the battles here."

"I think I remember hearing about that," Kirito began, "didn't she have super regenerating powers?"

"Mind control too," Shinji nodded. "She got Nyarko for a short while before Eri snapped her out of it."

"So do we know where this Nui girl came from?" Asuna asked.

"Absolutly no clue," Shinji answered.

"And that-" Kirito snapped his fingers- "is why they left."

* * *

**"Time."**

**Written by Calum Traveler**

* * *

"It was simply a matter of time before you all fell before my blade!" the Kendo Master of the Elite Four, Sanageyama, Uzu, already transformed into his uniform's super form, raised his sword, "FACE ME! MATOI, RYUUKO!"

"Really? With your eyes stitched shut like that?" Ryuuko rolled her eyes, grinning. "Alright then, Mister Tiny Snake." And she said it with such a mocking tone that it was obvious that she was referring to their previous battle.

Had his face not been obscured by the helmet, it would have been observed that Sanageyama's face was burning a furious red.

Senketsu chuckled, "I think you made him mad, Ryuuko."

Ryuuko's remark was cut short as Sangeyama roared- racing forwards towards them.

"Ah- Ryuuko- shouldn't we transform?" Senketsu asked.

"Wait for it..." Ryuuko began.

"HRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~~~~!"

"Wait...for...It..." her hand reached for the glove on her wrist...

"-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

"He's getting really close now!" Senketsu pointed out as Sanageyama closed the 3/4th distance between them.

"-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

"NOW-!" Ryuuko leaped to the side, pulling the pin off of the glove- _**"LIFE FIBER SYNCHRONIZE!"**_

Sanageyama's speed was built up too much for him to do much of anything- as Senketsu transformed mid leap, Sangeyama's forwards momentum sent him hurtling straight for the edge of the battlefield.

"-AAAAAAAAAAA-!Ara!?" ...And then he kept on running through mid air for a comical few seconds. "Shouldn't I have hit her by now...?"

Ryuuko and Senketsu just stared on as the blind Sanageyama kept on running like a cartoon character...

"Should you tell him, or should I?" Jakuzure, Nonon, one of the defeated Elite Four, asked from the stands.

"Eh, let's let him figure it out on his own," Gagamori, Ira, another of the defeated Elite Four, said with a blank stare. "I'm just waiting to see how far he gets before he falls."

"Right about...!" Mako checked a nonexistent watch, "NOW!"

It was then that Sanageyama finally realized that he was running on thin air.

"Aw crap."

And then he fell into the audience below.

_**CRASH.**_

Ryuuko flinched in sympathy pain, "Well that's gotta hurt..."

"His ego, at any rate," Senketsu agreed.

"Er..." A confused announcer called out, **"WINNER: **_**MATOI!"**_

From the audience, a gender-flipped Ryouma **[ALIAS: Maiko Ogura]** looked over to a fellow No-Star student- a boy wearing glasses with one eye covered up with grey hair **[ALIAS: Shinjiro Nagita]**- and remarked, "Well that was entertaining, to say the least, wasn't it, Nagita-kun?"

"Oh definitely!" The boy nodded. "I can't wait for the next fight though!"

"Agreed," Ryouma smiled, then looked up at the soon-to-be confrontation between two Kamui wielders.

One subtle push here and a nag there during classes over the last week proved to be successful at nudging the timeline into a more favorable outcome.

After all, all it took was one simple mention of cartoon physics around that Mako girl in order to plant the idea, of letting the blind Sanageyama run off of the field, into Ryuuko's head.

Yes, Ryouma thought while reaching a hand out to grab the equally gender-flip-disguised Nui's other hand, that had definitely been time well spent.

* * *

**"Insight."**

**Written by Calum Traveler**

* * *

Satsuki Kiryuin suspected that something was up the day that her "little sis" Nui Harime vanished off of the face of the earth following a 'super top secret mission', much to their Mother's concern. (In secret, Satsuki reveled in the fact that something had finally gotten Ragyo off of her back, and built up her army better, faster, stronger, ect.)

Of course, the suspicion was quickly forgotten in the wake of Ryuuko Matoi's appearance and subsequent trail of conquest through Honnouji Academy. Although, when she found time to investigate, what was surprising to Satsuki was that the man that Nui had been sent to 'investigate' was Ryuuko's murdered father.

The red Scissor Blade and the Kamui Senketsu were complete unknowns- and it was Ryuuko's first arrival with both on proud display that garnered Satsuki's attention...and suspicion.

Had Nui murdered the girl's father in an attempt to drive Ryuuko here? If so, was that against Ragyo's orders?

But then there was that blade- able to slice her school's precious Goku Uniforms into ribbons with a single slice. That scissor blade was of the same quality as her own precious sword... but what if it went beyond that, and held more secrets even Ryuuko didn't know about.

Satsuki shook her head- now was not the time to be worrying about this. Now was the first time that she and Ryuuko would officially clash head on. Sword to sword.

Whether the quality of her blade would hold up against Ryuuko's did not matter.

What mattered was winning- and convincing Ryuuko to join her at the top of Honnouji Academy...

Then maybe Ragyo could be defeated...

"Kiryuin, Satsuki!" Ryuuko called out, still transformed from her 'fight' with Sanageyama. "Today's the day I'll beat you, and find out what you know about my father's murder!"

"Maybe," Satsuki began, "but you're going to be disappointed, I'm afraid."

"OH? Why's that?" Ryuuko taunted.

"Because I'm going to _**win**_." And with that- Satsuki threw the three switches on the left arm of her uniform and roared, _**"[LIFE FIBER OVERRIDE! KAMUI JUNKETSU!]"**_ Satsuki drew her sword, "I congratulate you for beating all of the Elite Four, Matoi; and for that, win or loose, I offer you a position at my side atop Honnouji."

Ryuuko glanced sideways at the eye on her Uniform... the Kamui, Senketsu... then looked back at her, and then back at the uniform and then back at her again before saying, "What" In about as flat of a tone as she could muster.

Satsuki nearly laughed at that- but all that surfaced was a faint crack of a smile. "You sound surprised, Matoi, Ruuko. These are the **[NATURAL ELECTIONS]** after all. What else did you expect to happen if you made it this far?"

"I don't want to rule some dumb school," Ryuuko glared, drawing out the Scisor blade, "I just want the bitch who killed my father with the other half of this blade!"

_"Wow! Thanks! _I was looking for that!"

And then an umbrella handle swiped the red blade out of Ryuuko's hand and pulled it straight up into a cloud that had not been there a second before.

"WHA-!?" Ryuuko and Satsuki both looked up at the cloud to see none other than Harime, Nui, lounging back on it, holding up the red blade above her head as she looked it over with both of her intact, blue eyes.

"It really is such a nice piece of metal! But red's just not my color!" Nui then tossed the blade back down towards the ground- where it sharply embedded itself in between Ryuuko and Satsuki with a _**SPROING.**_ "Now _**Green**_ on the other hand!" And then straight from the cloud- which was much too small to hold much of anything inside it- Nui drew out the other half of the blade, colored a strange, sickly shade of green.

"Y-YOU!" Ryuuko cried out as she saw the blade. "HOW DID YOU GET THAT!?"

"Nui! Where the hell have you been!?" Satsuki called out- finally getting her wits about her. "You've worried your mother sick!" Practically. Close enough to the truth at any rate.

"Hm? Me?" Nui mused as she twirled the blade around over her head like it was a normal sized scisor, rather than the giant version that it was. "I was playing with Ryou~Me! He gave me the blade!"

"Who the hell is Ryoume!?" Ryuuko yelled, while grabbing her blade out of the ground and pointing it straight at Nui's cloud.

Satsuki face palmed, and answered "Her imaginary friend."

"Imaginary..!?" (And was it just her, or did Satsuki hear Ryuuko and Senketsu both remark that in unison? Nah. Was probably someone from the audience.)

"But Ryou~Me's not imaginary!" Nui grinned. "He's right here!"

And then with a loud _**clap**_ of static, another, more Draconian form appeared in mid air above Nui, gripping onto the Scissor blade and just... ignoring gravity otherwise.

"Well Hellooooo there!" Quartzmon's Chimera form grinned at them.

It couldn't be helped- most everyone in the audience screamed.

Well, everyone except for the other Nui and Ryouma, still in their disguises, both eating popcorn as they watched some future/past version of themselves working their magic of stage performance.

Ryuuko just grinned, "So...the imaginary friend isn't so imaginary after all..." She glanced back at Satsuki, "You wanna elaborate on this before I chop him into pieces?"

Satsuki just stared up at the chimera form in horror- "How the hell are you even real!?"

"He's always been real," Nui beamed. "You just couldn't see him because he didn't want to be seen."

"Oh and yes, kiddo," Quartzmon grinned savagely back at the girl, "I did kill your father. Why? Well... it was either I kill him, or he hurts my precious Harime-chan!" And with that, he leaned down and planted a kiss against Nui's cheek. "And I'd really rather she not lose an eye... They're much too pretty after all."

And then he moved like lightning- and before either Ryuuko or Satsuki knew what was happening, they'd both been sent flying off of the battlefield arena, hurtling towards the ground below- and all eyes followed their descent.

"WHAT THE-!?" Ryuuko stabbed her Scisorblade into the side of the pillar and reached out- barely managing to catch Satsuki by grabbing onto one of Junketsu's spiky parts.

"Damn that girl-" Satsuki breathed, glancing around for her sword. Where the hell had it gone to...? "Throw me back up!"

"I don't take orders from you, but_** OKAY!"**_ And then Ryuuko threw Satsuki straight up into the air with too much force than was necessary.

Satsuki righted herself mid air, and then landed on the battlefield.

Nui and Quartzmon were gone... and so was her sword.

In their place instead was a glimmering note hand-written on the pavement with life fiber threads and... were those quartz crystals?

"A sword always needs a friend!" read the message. "And black goes better with green than red!" which made absolutely no sense at all to anyone who even had the vaguest knowledge of color theory.

"Where the hell did they go!?" Satsuki yelled out.

Nobody knew the answer.

* * *

**A.N.: also of note: on**** 'no late day', Maiko did NOT attempt to steal Senketsu, and 'she' and Nagita remain classmates of Ryuuko and Mako. Nobody suspects their true identities, not even Satsuki. How? Time travel. That's how.  
**


	5. Escape Velocity

**"Surprises"**

**Written By: Calum Traveler**

* * *

In her own private quarters on the _Good Friday,_ Akari Hinomoto **[Queen of the Digital World; Xros Heart general]** sat at her desk, idly tapping a pen to paper as she tried to condense her thoughts down into a report.

If there was one thing she and Sylen failed to consider in their race to become King and Queen of the Digital World, it was the paperwork... Specifically the legal reports of every after-action expense that had to be paid out after a large battle...or even the small ones...

There was a knock at the door.

With a bit of delight, Akari pushed back away from the desk and called out, "Just a second!" She slipped out of her chair and moved over to the door, then opened it.

"Hi, Akari," It was **[Lila Tsurugi; Zenjirou's wife; Xros Heart Member; also a Lillymon]** at the door, looking somewhat embarrassed and tired as she stood there. "Can I come in?"

"Sure," Akari nodded, and stood clear so Lila could walk in. "What's up?" She asked before closing the door.

"Well..." Lila went over to the king-sized bed (typically shared by Akari and Sylen during their trips together) and sat down on the edge before smoothing out her skirt and taking a really deep breath. "Zenjirou and I...that is to say... I think we're going to be parents."

Akari blinked, staring at her friend, and then started to smile, "Woah, Really?"

"I'm not really sure yet," Lila said, "I was going to ask Wisemon when we got back, but he's gone off with Yuu on a mission, and Nene and Echidna are busy with something right now, so..." She shrugged while actually saying "shrug."

"Hehe," Akari laughed slightly as she moved over to sit next to Lila. "Still, that's great news!"

"You're not mad, are you?" Lila asked.

"Mad?" Akari made a "Pfsh" sound, then gave Lila a hug. "I when Nene and Kiriha got to be the first of us with a kid, and I'm not going to be mad with you. Hell, was I even mad with Petsula?"

"Well, to be fair, we didn't know you two were cousins at the time," Lila admitted.

"Yeah," Akari nodded. "That whole thing with Chou and Airu still trips me up. I'm still kind of meh on the whole 'Aradia's my older sister' thing too."

"She's about as Meh with it all as well, I think..." Lila nodded. "I havent even seen her in months. Have you?"

"No," Akari shook her head. "It's kind of concerning, honestly..." She then closed her eyes and smiled. "Changing subject though. Have you told Zenjirou yet?"

"I've been waiting to find out if I'm really pregnant or not before I do," Lila answered. "Best not to get his hopes up...'

"Let's go see if Nene's free now?" Akari asked.

"Sure," Lila nodded, "and maybe we'll find out what's going on too."

* * *

As the two girls stepped out on deck, they nearly ran straight into the girl they were seeking, who was accompanied by another girl, unfamiliar, with blue eyes and short blond hair that looked semi-recently cut.

"Oh! Great!" **[Nene Aounoma; General of Xros Heart; Host to Denizen Echidna;]** smiled, "Akari! I was just looking for you."

"Really? We were just looking for you too," Akari said.

**'Gotta love timing, don't you?'** Echidna spoke up.

"Yes, right," Nene agreed with the Denizen inside her head, and then began introductions, "Millia, this is Akari Hinomoto, Queen of the digital world. Akari, this is **[Princess Millia il Velch Cutrettola Turan]** of the Nation of Turan."

Akari blinked at the long name, and Millia smiled in apology. "You can just call me Millia. Everyone else does."

"What's going on?" Lila asked.

"Well, long story short," Nene began, "Quartzmon's using a local militant super power to take over their world, and started his conquest by blowing up the nation of Turan."

"Ouch," Akari grimaced, "he sure is fond of blowing up people's homes, isn't he?"

"I never knew this Quartzmon was even behind any of this save for those strange Towers," Millia explained. "And that was well after the peace talks with the Ades Federation fell through. We thought that **[Primere Luscinia Hāfez****]** was simply working under the orders of the Augusta when he attacked Turan, but the kidnapping of my Sister made no sense at the time. And makes even less sense now that we know she's still alive..." She paused for a sigh, "and turned her back on me and Turan in the same stroke."

"Maybe we should step inside?" Akari offered.

"Probably would be for the best," Nene nodded.

As they returned inside, heading back towards the room that Akari and Lila had just left, Millia explained how a group of renegades with no nation of their own- known as Sky Pirates- had rescued her, and kept her safe after the attack on Turan.

"Fam of course, got the bright idea to steal the Reaper, _Silvius,_ for me," Millia sighed slightly. "Despite the trouble it was getting caught, and having to track down fifteen Skyfish to catch; my time on that ship has been some of the happiest moments in my recent memory. I do hope they're all okay."

"If things work out right," Nene said, "we can probably get back just shortly after you three left."

"That would be wonderful, although, I'm concerned for my sister. Everyone on board the Turan ships just seemed to follow her every word without thinking," Millia frowned. "I have no clue where she'd get such power to control minds like that."

"Quartzmon usually doesn't do mass hypnosis," Lila said. "Even back in the day, he always focused on singular pawns."

"Hopefully he hasn't gotten some new trick under his sleeve," Akari grumbled. "That'd just be _**great.**_" She paused, a thought hitting her. "Oh, Nene, Lila wanted to talk to you about something private. I can talk with Millia while you two take care of that, alright?"

"Alright," Nene smiled and nodded. "Lila-san?"

"Sure," Lila nodded, then mouthed a "Thank you" at Akari before following Nene off.

"Um...what was that about?" Millia asked.

"Just some personal matters," Akari smiled. "Nothing to worry about."

"Well, if you say so..." Millia answered.

"So tell me, what exactly are we going to be expecting on the other side?" Akari asked.

"Well... There's Glacias, for starters..."

* * *

"Alright, let's get everything loaded," Olegmon ordered as DarkVolumon pulled in the Senketsu-bound vespa, meanwhile Fam and Giselle pushed from behind in an attempt to steer, into the cargo hold. "We take off in an hour!"

"I like that guy's attitude," Senketsu remarked, "reminds me of someone, though."

Fam just sort of paled upon seeing the towering form of Olegmon, and even Giselle did a double take.

Both of them quickly resumed trying to push him into the cargo hold.

Naturally- Fam had put her right hand in a bad position on one of the roughened metal edges, and so when they moved over the doorframe leading into the cargo hold..

"Ow!" Fam yelped, and pulled her hand back in surprise, shaking it out from the pain. "Damn it..." It was a small scrape across the palm of her hand- just barely enough to draw blood, and probably would heal up on its own soon enough... but it was more than enough to leave a trail of blood along the edge of the roughened metal...

Blood that quickly was absorbed by Senketsu's life fibers.

Fam did a double take at that. Surely she imagined it?

"Euck!" Senketsu griped, his eye swirling from the peculiar taste; "Your blood tastes like lightning! What have you been eating lately? _**Potatoes?**_"

Fam didn't hear Senketsu's remark, and instead quickly pulled a glove on so that she wouldn't repeat that mistake again as she helped resume pushing.

* * *

"Great," Senketsu grumbled as he was left alone in the cargo hold along with several crates of food. "Alone again... They didn't even actually replace anything earlier either so everything still feels out of place..." He paused for a moment, then remarked, "I think I'm going insane, talking to myself like this." He sniffed, and a small tear gathered up at his eye. "Ryuuko...I wonder what you're up to right now?"

* * *

With a mighty chorous of Haleluja!, Mako went on a rant.

"SENKETSU IS LOST IN SPACE!" She made a zooming space-ship motion, and then mimed a robot while wearing a glass bowl on her head.

"He's Absolutely Lost and yet Found at the same time!" Ryuuko and Satsuki just stared on blankly as Mako held out a magnyfing glass and 'zoomed' it back and forth infront of her right eye, which had been replaced by a copy of Senketsu's eye patch.

"Senketsu WILL RETURN!" She suddenly was duplicated, with one her disguised as Ryuuko hugging the other version of herself that was disguised as Senketsu.

"But he'll have to go on a SUPER SPACE ADVENTURE FIRST!" More space rocket zooming, although this time Mako was wearing a lab coat, and had a black wig on that was tied up into a pony tail with a violet scrunchy. "_**ZYUUUU**_~~**OOOOOOOONNNN!**"

Nonon just flatly asked, "And just what the heck is a 'Zuon', Underachiever?"

* * *

Senketsu sighed, "I guess I'll never know."

* * *

**"Ascending"**

**Written by: Calum Traveler**

* * *

"Excuse me?"

Olegmon turned, "Hm? What is it?"

"Do you know where Zenjirou is?" Lila asked.

"Try the kitchen," Olegmon jabbed a thumb at the door leading to the galley.

"Thnak you," Lila bowed in thanks, and moved off to try to locate her husband.

Olegmon just grinned, and checked his watch, "Alright then! We've got thirty minutes before take off! I want this deck cleared off and ready for SpaceTrailmon to dock in ten! UNDERSTOOD?"

"GWAPO GWAPO!" The crew members on deck all chimed out, and went to work.

* * *

"Fam? Giselle?" Millia called out as she wandered down to the cargo hold, "Are you two down here?"

"Over here!" Giselle waved out from behind a box.

"Ah," Millia marched over to join the two Sky Pirates. "You two really should meet the Queen of the Digital World. She's only a few years older than us, actually. About the same age as the Denizens too."

"Oh wow, really?" Giselle asked. "That's surprising. I thought the Denizens were exceptions or someting."

"No, actually," Millia shook her head. "Apparently there was something with time travel that made them all reach their sixteenth birthdays around the same time."

"Meh," Fam grumbled as she worked on loosening something inside the Vespa's insides, "sofar sixteen hasn't been that great..."

"Well, that will be up for debate once we figure out what to do about..." Millia trailed off as she saw the eye on the vespa crunched up as if it were laughing, or maybe crying in pain. "Is that eye actually _**moving?**_"

"Yeah, it's weird," Giselle said. "Fam says something got caught up in the explosion and helped keep us in while Fam tried piloting us to safety."

"Something with one eye?" Millia asked. "Was it an animal of some kind?"

"Nope," Fam removed the wrench she was using, and then, with a _**pop**_, pulled something out.

If they could hear Senketsu's voice- they would have had to cover their ears at his scream of surprise jumping up several octives on the scale.

* * *

Meanwhile, Tagiru blinked. "Did you hear something?"

"Nope," Akari shook her head.

The father and daughter were conversing from different heights- Akari leaning against the _Friday'_s inner railing looking down, and Tagiru standing down at the docks looking up.

"Must've been my imagination then," Tagiru paused. "So another Quartzmon battle, huh? You're going to wear yourselves out thin if you don't change something about your work load."

"We just had Marcus die on us, Dad," Akari frowned. "Work's all we can do right now so we don't fall apart and get caught up on grief..."

"I know, but still..." Tagiru glanced to the side, then back to his daughter. "It just seems like you all are working yourselves too hard. I don't want to see you all get hurt because you slipped up and missed something important."

"Stop being such a worry wort, dad," Akari smiled. "We'll be fine. Besides, I feel like our luck's changing for the better." And then she said, "Lila's pregnant."

"What? realy?" Tagiru ran a hand through his hair. "Man, it seems like it's been long enough. First Nyarko, then Mahiro... you and Aradia in between that for me and your mom... Do they know if it's a boy or a girl yet?"

"No, all Nene could confirm was that Lila's pregnant," Akari answered. "A bit too early for gender, I think."

"Yeah, probably..." Tagiru paused. "Are they coming with you?"

"Probably," Akari then narrowed her eyes. "And no, I am going to make sure that neither of them go planet side and I've already given Olegmon never to take the _Friday_ down beyond orbit."

"Glad to see you're thinking ahead," Tagiru smirked. "I'm proud of you, Akari."

"Geeze, you don't have to go all soap-opera on me like that," Akari rolled her eyes in mock-disgust, then smiled at her dad. "Thanks."

_**"LIFT OFF IN FIVE!"**_ DarkVolumon's voice boomed across the _Friday_.

"Guess that's my cue," Akari smiled apologetically.

"Keep safe out there," Tagiru added. "Your mother'll be woried sick otherwise."

"We all know it's you who's gonna be woried, dad," Akari joked.

"Yeah, I know," Tagiru muttered to himself as he watched as his Daughter waved a 'see ya soon' and turned to head inside. "Can't an old man be concerned about his kids for a change?"

* * *

_**"SEALING BULKHEADS! EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T WANT TO BE SPACED- GET IN OR GET OFF!" **_DarkVolumon yelled.

"Spaced?" Millia asked as she followed Akari onto the bridge.

"Sometimes time and space don't play along nicely," Akari explained. "There's a solid sphere of atmosphere around our solar system, but fifty percent of other timelines or dimensions don't have that, so if we weren't protected, we'd leak atmosphere into space rather quickly."

"Ah, I see, like some kind of decompression?" Millia asked.

"Yup," Akari nodded.

"Ah, good, you're here," Olegmon greeted as he came up behind them. "First mate! How's the ship?"

Mermaidmon turned around, smiling, "Tip top shape, captain! We're just about ready to activate the outter hull!"

"Good, is everything secure?" he asked.

"Everything 'scept the stray passenger here and there," she nodded in return.

"Tinkermon!" Olegmon grabbed a wired walkie-talkie from the roof of the room and spoke into it, "How's the engines looking?"

"We've got a slight warble in the compression coil, but otherwise we're cleared for launch," The chief engineer of the _Good Friday,_ Tinkermon, said after punching a button on the wall. "I'd recommend that we pick up a replacement next time we head into the Lagann Cluster. I'd imagine those Gokaigers would be willing to lend us a spare."

"Aye," Olegmon nodded, then punched a button on the console the walkie-talkie had been attached to and sent out a ship wide announcement. "CREW! This is your Captain, Olegmon, Speaking! We're about to depart Digital World harbor and Orbit, on mission to fight off another o' Quartzmon's goons. We're at **[Code Galleon]**! I don't think I need to tell ya what that means."

"What does that mean, exactly?" Millia asked.

"You'll see," Akari smirked ever so teasingly.

"If everyone's ready?" Olegmon smirked, and then yelled out: "GWAPPO GWAPPO!~"

All over the ship came a resounding cry of **"VIVA OLEGUNA!"**

"That is all!" Olegmon put up the walkie talkie, and then turned to Mermaidmon, "After you!"

"With pleasure, Captain!" the mermaid suddenly shifted her tail into two legs (wearing fishscale-pants to boot!) and strolled over to the wheel. "LET'S GO!"

And with that, she kicked at a button on the floor.

* * *

With a roar of the engines- Tinkermon watched as a special little add-on between them activated, and then grinned as it sent out bursts of crimson energy into the ship's hull.

* * *

The _Good Friday _began to raise up from the water with a roar of power- even as a shiny red and black Digi-Chromizoid armor began forming over all parts of it. Gold trim appeared- and then two giant engine thrusters formed off of the back just behind four newly sprouted wings... Even the cloth sails gained crimson armor.

Tagiru waved up at the ship as it ascended higher and higher. "GOOD LUCK!"

Inside the cargo hold, Fam steadied herself against a crate at the sudden jerking motions. "Good Tailwinds..." She said with a breath.

The _Friday_ ascended higher and higher- exiting the atmosphere rather quickly, then turning at an easy pace towards the sun.

Thankfully- the inside windshields were tinted and rated to view solar objects like that, and so it wasn't much of as jarring of a transition as Millia was expecting.

"Are we...in space?" she asked.

"We are," Akari nodded.

"This is amazing..." Millia stared out into the expanse around them as the _Friday_ turned to curve around the sun in a path similar to the one that Fam had guided the Vespa through.

After clearing the other side of the sun, they all got a good look at the debris that was still falling into the sun.

"Wheew," Mermaidmon whistled, "They sure did a number in on whatever bridge sent you here."

The _Friday_ passed a giant fragment of rock just barely smaller than them.

"I'm surprised I slept through all of this," Millia stared on. "I'm surprised Fam managed to stay awake long enough to get us to safety."

"And now here we are, moving back into danger?" Akari asked with a wry smile.

"Very much so," Millia nodded.

"SpaceTrailmon is just up ahead," Olegmon pointed out the window at a small glowing object in the distance. "See that glow? That's its engine."

Millia stared out, "What? That's a ship?"

"Yup, and we'll be docking with them in just a moment," Akari added.

* * *

To the outside observer, the transformed _Friday_ was twice as big compared to SpaceTrailmon.

The small firefly designed ship was just barely small enough to fit on its rear most deck, its destination, without crushing anything that wasn't already folding away to make room.

"Lining up docking ports," Hideaki reported as he guided SpaceTrailmon in towards the small port where their two outside hatches would line up.

* * *

SpaceTrailmon spun so that their front side would match the _Friday'_s, and then with some adjustments from the side maneuvoring thrusters... _**THUD.**_** CLASP.**

Both ships were docked together.

* * *

"Transferring full Navi controls to the _Friday_..." Hideaki pressed a few buttons- and then... _**ding!**_ "Controls transferred."

_"Controls received, Trailmon,"_ Mermaidmon acknowledged. _"Proceeding into the rift."_

And with that- both Space Trailmon's side engines and the _Friday_'s rear thrusters ignited- and the docked ships shot forwards through the trail of Debris, following as clear of a path through it as was safely possible.

* * *

**"Tempting Prospects."**

**Written by Calum Traveler**

* * *

"Graaahh-!" Davis yawned as he stretched out his shoulders. "I'm looking forwards to a nice long bath before we hit battle again..."

"mee tooo..." DemiVmon agreed with a tired sigh from Davis' shoulder. "But...could we get shome candy firsht?"

"Sure..." Davis agreed.

"Hatch is pressurized," Kotone said as she opened the inner lock doors. "We're free to switch ships now."

"Great," Davis said as he waited for the doors to open, and then he moved for the locked ramp...or more specifically, the door located inside it.

With a twish and a pop, he pulled the door inwards, and then knocked on the door waiting on the other side.

There was a moments pause, and then it, too, pulled open to the inside.

"Yo!" Akari greeted. "Is my darling husband on board?"

"Check the bridge," Davis jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "He's still monitoring the subspace whatevers."

"Thank you!" And with that, Akari slipped past him.

"Yeah, you're welcome," Davis slipped through the door after Akari had cleared it.

"Hey!" Kotone waved at Akari. "How was Khenarthii?"

"Roosting," Akari remarked with a chuckle. "Kaiyumi could tell you more. How was Magical Girl land?"

**"I got to give Quartzmon the **_**bends**_**!" **Cetus added with glee, to which Kotone continued, "The whole 'trap him in water' thing really added to the effect! Also: Davis fell into a tree!"

"Cool, and also 'LOL'," Akari snickered, "I look forward to the after-action report!"

**"Rina's just finishing up her report up, and that's the last of it," **Cetus said. Kotone picked up; "We left ours on the kitchen table."

"Sweet," Akari gave a thumbs up. "Sylen on the bridge?"

"Yeah, this rock path thing has had his attention since we got back," Kotone nodded. "Now if you'll excuse me, Cetus and I are going to go steal all the hot water before Davis gets a chance to use any!" And with that- the girl slipped away on a pair of water-made roller blades.

Akari just shook her head, "I'll never get used to that."

* * *

"OW!" Senketsu yelped- "Stop poking around in there! I know it's not really my body but it still _**HURTS**_ for some damned reason! At the very least give me a warning before you try pulling something so I can get my life fibers out of the way first!"

Fam held up a poorly bent piece of engine. "What do you think, Gigi?"

Giselle stared at the bent piece of metal, and then sighed- "Scrap heap."

"Figures," and with that, Fam threw the piece of metal over her shoulder into the scrap pile box. "At this rate we're going to have to completely rebuild the whole thing from scratch."

"If we wait until we get back home, finding replacement parts should be easier," Giselle mused.

"Yeah, and then you'll leave my insides alone and you won't have to keep pulling them out of me!" Senketsu grumbled- making what little remained of his interior engine rumble as well.

"Aw, she seems upset at us," Giselle frowned.

"SHE!?" Senketsu yelled- "I'll have you know I'm a HE thank you very much!" His eye narrowed dramatically at her.

"See? She's probably thinking 'yeah, you really nailed that one on the head'!" Giselle laughed just a little.

"Haha!" Fam laughed- "I bet you're right!"

"While I appreciate that you got my sarcastic tone down pat," Senketsu grumbled- _**"THAT STILL DOESN'T EXCUSE GETTING MY GENDER WRONG!"**_

It would have been a truly spectacular engine start up had critical pieces not been removed.

Instead- what little claudia remained in the fuel lines sputtered out and began floating in mid air.

"Woah, guess the fuel doesn't like space travel very much," Fam stared at the fuel particles that slowly drifted towards a doorway.

"Yeah," Giselle nodded...

Silence fell between them for a few moments.

"Hey, Fam?"

"Yeah?"

"Our lives have gotten pretty interesting lately, haven't they?"

"Define interesting."

"Oh god, oh god, we're all going to die?" Senketsu offered.

"Well, mainly I-" Giselle began to define her use of the word when she suddenly smelled something. "Hey, do you smell apples?"

And there came a sputter and a yelp from the door that the stray claudia fuel had floated towards. Perfect dramatic timing.

"Gahhjh- what ish thish shtuff!?" DemiVmon yelped from Davis' shoulder as he tried to get some of the stray fuel off of his face.

"Oh no," Giselle gasped, "Sorry! We're really sorry! Some of the fuel got loose and-" Her eyes widened- "Oh crap! FAM! Get me a wet wash cloth!" She quickly got up and ran over.

"Right! Right!" and with that, Fam ran off to find what her friend had requested.

"Sorry, we've never had Claudia fuel floating around like this, but we didn't think anyone would come down here while we were working on repairs!" Giselle apologized profusely, with several sharp bows thrown in for good measure.

"Hey, hey, it'll be fine, right?" Davis asked.

"As soon as we get it washed off, yes...!" Giselle nodded, "Skin contact really isn't recommended, it can be tolerated, but it's really not good to get it near the face...!"

"And that's what's been running through this engine of mine!?" Senketsu paled slightly- if that was even possible.

And then he sniffed at the air.

"Wait a second..." Another sniff. "Why do I smell...familiar blood...?"

He glanced around in confusion as Fam came running back in with a wet wash cloth, "Here we go!"

Giselle took the cloth and quickly began washing DemiVmon's face off, apologizing once more, "We're really sorry about this..."

"My eyeees!" DemiVmon cried out as he got fresh water in them- "they Stiiiiiinnnnggg!"

"Aw quit crying, you cry baby," Davis scolded his partner, "You say that every time I make you take a bath."

"Can't I just get my candy now...?"

Senketsu's eye fell on Davis, and more specifically, the fresh wounds on his hands from when he fell in the tree earlier. He took another sniff. "It's him, but...what is it exactly? I can't tell at this distance..." Senketsu's eye narrowed. "Alright. I can't believe I'm saying this... Damn it, Mako... Time to R2-D2 this to the maximum."

"Yeah, alright, we'll get you your candy just as soon as I figure out what crate it's in," Davis began...

And then Senketsu made a classical car alarm sound- eye flashing rapidly with light as he jurry-rigged the built in radio to put out the most annoying sound possible.

"What the hell!?" Fam turned on the Vespa- "Seriously!?" She marched right on over and kicked at Senketsu. "Cut it out!"

Senketsu huffed out a series of negating beeps after shutting the 'alarm' sound off.

"Wow, sounds like someone set off the car alarm," Davis joked, and wandered over along with Giselle to inspect the random noise.

"You do know itsh not a car, Davish," DemiVmon inquired.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Davis got down on his knees and looked Senketsu in the eye. "One eye huh? Bet you've got a story for that one, huh?"

"If I could remember it," Senketsu narrowed his eye, sniffing at Davis to try to figure out what was familiar. "There's a lot more familiar now... damn it's maddening! ugh, too many apples too...Have you been eating nothing but those damned things?"

"She's some kind of alien that attached herself onto the Vespa when we got booted off of our world," Giselle explained.

"Ignoring the gender thing-" Senketsu took another sniff. Okay- it was definitely something from home... But what?

"Yup, helped keep Millia and Gigi inside while I steered us to safety," Fam nodded, then paled slightly. "Then threw itself right onto the Vespa when we hit reentry. I think its stuck."

"Stuck huh?" Davis looked Senketsu over. "I bet you're not real happy about that at all, are you?" And with that he reached a bloodied hand out and touched it to Senketsu's 'forehead', or about as best as Davis could guess.

Senektsu's eye widened in sharp surprise as he got a full taste of the boy's blood. "No way-"

"Well, don't worry. I'm sure you'll get unstuck eventually. These things have a way of working themselves out after a while," Davis smiled.

"R-Ryuuko!" Senketsu's eye teared up, "Your blood tastes just like Ryuuko somehow?!"

"Aw, I think she likes you," Giselle giggled.

"Aw, shucksh," DemiVmon laughed. "Another harem protagonisht and you haven't even given your name yet, Davish!"

"Alright alright," Davis grinned, "Nice to meet you, whatever you are. I'm Davis Motomiya. This is my partner, Vmon! Though he's DemiVmon right now. Haha."

"I'm Giselle Collette Vingt," Giselle introduced herself. "That's Fam."

"Nice to meet you both," Davis offered up his hand that, up until a moment ago, had been on top of Senketsu.

Fam stared for a moment- she was sure that it had been rather bloody moments ago- but now looked clean and healed up, practically.

In that moment of hesitation, she looked down to see the bloody handprint (faint as it was) fade into Senketsu's skin.

It was also in that single moment of hesitation that Giselle took Davis's hand and shook it.

Fam would forever curse herself for hesitating.

* * *

**A.N.: Oh, Davis. You just had to take a wrong turn trying to find the galley, didn't you? ALSO! Be sure to check out the AO3 version of this story! The first exclusive segment was uploaded just yesterday! :33 Get a glimpse into the past as the kids who would become the parents of our favorite Xros Heart generals face off against MoonMilleniumnmon for the first/final time!  
**


	6. Where all life was born and will return

**"Sanctuary."**

**Written by Calum Traveler**

* * *

**[Queen Millia il Velch Cutrettola Turan]** stood out on the deck of a rather small personal Vanship that was lowering towards an island in the middle of the Grand Lake. With a deep sigh, she wondered if her wishes would truly be answered.

The last time she'd been here for this ceremony, it had lead to war with the Ades Federation... Of course, the influence of Quartzmon had something to do with it, no doubt, but even so...

Millia did not look forwards to a repeat of that situation, and prayed that it would not happen this time. Behind her, **[Teddy; Servent/Aide/Secretary; Expert Tea Maker]** stood silently, holding a towel. She smiled back at him, "Don't worry, Teddy, I'm sure things will go alright."

"Oh yes, definitely," Teddy nodded. "Although...I can't help but to be nervous."

"Yes, the timing of it all is somewhat of a concern," Millia nodded, "but it all should work out. Nobody else knows we're out here, so an attack isn't likely... not like with Luscina."

"Yes..." Teddy frowned. "I remember that day all too well. I still have nightmares sometimes!"

"Don't we all?" Millia asked silently as the small ship landed, and she took a step out onto the sandy islet.

Her bare feet squished the sand between her toes, and for a moment, Millia thought back to her childhood. No, this was not the time for looking back into the past.

Millia walked out into the water, shivering as the early morning's chilled temperatures contrasted sharply against her feet and ankles, slowly rising higher up her legs as she walked out.

Tradition stated she stop a bit sooner, but it never hurt to be cautious. Millia went out until the water reached her knees.

"Oh Grand Lake," Millia began, "I seek your blessings in this most trying and stressful of times..." She knelt down- shivering as the water nearly overtook her body, which still was a few years younger than her sister had been at the time... "Please, allow the next week to pass uneventfully, without harm... and if it is at all in your power to return Fam to us, please, do such..."

Teddy stood on shore watching as Millia finished her long request to the Grand Lake. It was an errant breeze that made Teddy's nose itch- threatening to sneeze. Teddy glanced to the side as he did such, so as to not dirty the towel...And it was there that he saw a strange light in the sky. "Uh...Millia?" he called out.

"Hm? What is it, Teddy?" Millia asked as she stood up to turn to return to the island...

"Look!" Teddy nearly dropped the towel as he pointed up at the horizon.

"Hm?" Millia followed Teddy's gaze, and saw what he saw...

A glowing fireball- the heat of an object entering the planet's atmosphere- that quickly vanished, revealing the strangest creature Millia had ever seen.

If the giant ships that Sky Pirates had hunted were "Sky fish", then this was a "Space Whale" in all definitions of the term, save for the fact that it looked nothing like a whale at all and more like a long-necked Seal of the same scale as the Grand Exile, if only due to a lack of perspective and distance making it seem larger than it was.

Or perhaps it was actually closer than it seemed?

_**"ZYUOOOOON!"**_ a loud cry boomed through the air as **[PLEZUON- VOLTASAUR #9]** descended towards the deepest parts of the Grand Lake, swooshing overhead with a roar of massive sound and flames.

"What in the Great-?" Millia cut herself off as she caught sight of a translucent window in the creature's neck- revealing what looked to be some kind of battery of a rather familiar design. Millia's eyes widened- "No way! It can't be...!"

Plezuon turned in mid air- and then opened her mouth to allow a glowing light to shoot out and expand into what appeared to be a giant silver -!

**[BRAGIGAS- VOLTASAUR #10]** shook his neck out and let out a quiet call of approval.

Millia stared on in surprise- "Just what...the...?"

And then Plezuon spat out the battery from her mouth- to quickly be replaced with a giant red device of identical design.

**_GABURINCHO! OVER**_**CHAAAAAARGEEEE!_**_

And then Plezuon disappeared in a flash of red light that shot into Bragigas' Mouth.

Teddy fainted.

Millia turned to the only other person who had accompanied them out on this trip- the ever illusive boy, **[Dio Eraclea]**, presently serving as pilot.

"Woah!" Dio grinned. "That was amazing!"

"Dio!" Millia called out, "Try radioing them! I think it might be Fam!"

"Fam, huh?" Dio mused on it, then laughed. "Alright then!" He brought out a radio and called out. "Attention Giant Flying Purple thing! Or giant silver thing! Whoever's there! This is-"

_"Di~ooo!"_ Came the familiar tone of Fam's voice over the radio, cutting him off. _"What? How did you know we were out here?"_

"Well, you did just happen to fly over us just now!" Dio smiled. "Also- welcome back, Fam."

Millia smiled, "I knew it," she congratulated herself quietly before walking over to help pull Teddy up from where he'd fainted. "C'mon, Teddy. It's rude to faint when the Grand Lake grants us our wishes."

"It did...?" Teddy asked groggily, holding a hand to his head. "I thought I was dreaming..."

"Yes, it did," Millia laughed slightly. "Now come on, help me dry off. A Queen must be dressed appropriately when greeting an old friend, afterall."

* * *

**"Terrifying Prospects."**

**Written by Calum Traveler**

* * *

"So how come you've put on the flight jacket you haven't touched in a year, again?" Roxy asked, slightly concerned. "It's a bit small now."

Fam shrugged as she zipped the jacket up, "Honestly, if Millia and Dio are down there, I just...don't quite wanna let 'em see how tough I got over the last year. It'd be kind of a shock, y'know?"

"I say you should open with the plug suit," Inaba said. "If you're dead set on flying over with Pteragordon, I mean."

"Well how else am I supposed to get over there?" Fam frowned.

"Maybe the Vespa that's designed for flight?" Dogold offered.

"I'd rather wait until we got a teleport pad set up before we move it," Fam said. "Remember how hard it was just getting it out of Plezuon into Bragigas?"

"Fair point," Dogold mused.

"In the mean time," Torin spoke up, having returned to his bird-man form, "I'll keep watch for any winds of misfortune, and let you know if something comes up."

"With the ten of us here," Caleb began, "we should be good to handle anything that does come up."

"Ahhem," Mahiro coughed. "Kuuko and I are here too, you know."

"Yes, but-" Caleb stopped as Kuuko sneezed and accidentally _**ZAP**_ped away,

"You're both still trying to control it," John added with a nervous smile, "is what he's trying to say."

"Fair enough," Mahiro sighed. "Especially since it looks like I've got to go find Kuuko now before she gets us into trouble, since she hasn't returned yet from that last Zap." With a wave and a _**ZAP,**_his voice echoed, "Be back soon!"

* * *

**"DO~DOOOOON!"**

A strange cry tore through the air as a giant golden winged beast **[PTERAGORDON- VOLTASAUR #6]** appeared in a flash of light and soared over from Bragigas.

Teddy fainted yet again, even as Millia turned around and stared up in surprise.

And then with a flash of crimson light and another **_OVER**_**CHAAAARGE!_**_ the giant bird shrunk down into a humanoid form- landing on the island next to her alongside a female figure in a gold and yellow colored, full body suit of...was that spandex?

The figure stood there for a few moments, simply looking Millia over- and then shook her head before pulling her helmet off.

Much to Millia's surprise- it was Fam's face who was there underneath the helmet.

"Hey, Millia," Fam smiled. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"er..." Millia was at a loss for words. "Yeah..." She fought to contain the blush that wanted to break out on her face. _'What in the world is she even wearing,'_ Millia thought, _'and why does she get to look ridiculously cute in it?'_

Fam blinked, and then laughed nervously as she scratched at the back of her head, "Oh, right, the Plug suit," And then with that, she opened the gauntlet on her wrist and pulled out another of those familiar batteries. With a snap of the gauntlet's mouth- the golden colored suit vanished from around Fam's body with a flash of yellow light, leaving her in the ever familiar flight-suit clothes she'd usually worn when flying. "See? It's still me!"

"Wooooah!" Dio cried out- leaping down from the ship and running over- "That was awesome, Fam! How'd you do that!?" And then he turned towards the transformed Pteragordon- "And who's your new friend!?"

"Ah, well, this is my partner, Pteragordon," Fam introduced. "He's a Voltasaur, one of Kaiyumi's pet projects, actually. Same with the suit. Though, this is the chibi-version of his transformed mode, **[Raiden-Oh].**"

"I'd figured as much," Millia reasoned as Teddy came to his senses again. "I thought I recognized the design of those batteries."

"Dondoooon!" Chibi-gordon cawed in approval.

"Haha, yeah," Fam nodded at the Voltasaur. "It is pretty distinctive."

Teddy blinked- "You can understand that!?"

"Eyup," Fam nodded.

"oh myyy..." Teddy fainted yet again.

Millia flinched, "I really think we need to get him to a bed. Poor boy's had enough surprises for one morning, I'd think."

"I'll bet," Fam nodded, then asked, "so what's the emergency John mentioned?"

"Who's John?" Dio asked as he pulled Teddy up into his arms.

"Tall, black hair, glasses, wears blue clothes and appears and disappears with a Zap?" Fam offered a description.

"Oh- right- him!" Millia laughed slightly. "Did he actually say it was an emergency? I think he misunderstood me."

"Misunderstood how?" Fam asked.

"Giselle and Davis are getting Married," Millia said.

Fam's right eye twitched, and then she turned to Chibi-gordon. "I seem to vaguely recall," She began, "something along the lines of a certain bamboo monster..." ChibiGordon nodded and cawed in confirmation. "With the ice cream, yeah."

Millia stared on as Fam suddenly broke out laughing.

"Er, is everything okay?" Millia asked.

"Just a little bit of wibbly wobbly time wimey," Fam waved it off, "that's all." And then with a grin she added, "Something about Stable Timeloops that'd really just bore you two to tears." And then when Pteragordon gave an inqusitive caw, Fam turned sharply around and yelled directly at Bragigas- "And Yes, Gordy,** I AM GOING TO CHASE HIM DOWN AND SHOCK HIM WITH MY SWORD FOR NOT TELLING ME ABOUT THIS! JOHN, **_**YOU WINDY-!**__"_

* * *

Inside the Spirit Base, John hid beneath the table as he watched that declaration from Bragigas' holgraphic screens.

"You okay there?" Roxy asked.

"Meep," John replied. "She's really serious about that, isn't she?"

"Considering what she did to me for trying to set her up on a date once?" Inaba then laughed as Shiro chimed in with an "Oh My!"

"I repeat:" John repeated, "Meep."

* * *

"Um, Fam," Millia coughed. "Besides that, there actually was something of minor concern alongside that I'd like to speak with you about."

"What?" Fam turned around, a suddenly serious expression on her face.

"We've heard rumors of some disappearances around the fringe areas around most major settlements," Millia explained, "we think they may be the remnants of Quartzmon's towers acting out against us."

"Towers huh?" Fam mused on that, and then brought up a strange box like device that seemed to have a screen on it. "You guys hear that?"

* * *

"Every word. Bragias' ears can pick up a lot at this distance," Caleb said into his own Mobuckle. "We'll spread out and search while you catch up with everyone here."

_"Sounds like a plan,"_ Fam agreed.

"I'll come down and join you, Fam," Merry spoke up. "I wanna sight see!"

* * *

"Who was that?" Millia asked.

"Remember Merry? Rina's kid?" Fam asked, "That's her."

"What?" Millia did a double take- "She's grown that much in a year?"

"Er, well..." Fam scratched at the right side of her forehead. "Has it really only been a year for you guys?"

"Fam Fan Fan-" Millia narrowed her eyes, "Please tell me you've not been traveling for more than a year."

"More like a month and a half with about a year of continuous giant monster battles in between?" Fam offered.

"Giant Monsters!?" Dio cried out as he returned, sans Teddy. "You've gotta tell me more!"

Fam's left eye twitched this time. _'This is going to be a long day.'_

* * *

**"Misplaced."**

**Written by, Calum Traveler.**

* * *

Somewhen at the heart of the Lagann Cluster, a DeLorean sat partially abandoned, it's owners having just sneaked off to perform some unknown secret mission.

Kuuko pushed the trunk hood open, and gasped for air. "Dagnabit!" She whined.

Quickly, she climbed out and closed the hood before sneaking away.

"Where am I...?" She frowned, glancing at a map on a wall. "...this isn't helping at all."

A few hallways later- Kuuko ran face first into Mahiro as he _**ZAP**_ped into existence.

"Oi! Finally," The boy said in a tone that sounded like he'd been searching for quite a while. "I almost ran into my dad as a kid because of that sneeze just now! Uncle Ren had to pull me out before I screwed things up!"

"Sorry," Kuuko appologized, bowing her head sharply. "I got stuck in the DeLorean's trunk right as it materialized, and I think Nyarko and Jules are doing something so I couldn't Zap out in case I accidentally messed things up and now I'm just not sure where I am-"

"Lagann Cluster," Mahiro summarized, "Just before our parents go and..."

The building shook violently.

"...Fight Quartzmon in the void between worlds," Mahiro summarized as he pulled Kuuko into a hug and _**ZAP**_ped away not a moment too soon.

The entire building began to glow as it was pulled into a fusion.

* * *

"Found her!" Mahiro said as he and Kuuko appeared on a cliff-face next to one Ren Tobari and his partner Dracomon.

"Good," Ren motioned for them to hide next to him, "now get down and outa sight. You need to see this."

They were on a cliff-face overlooking... "Is that the Monita-fort?" Kuuko asked.

"Yeah," Ren nodded. "And Zenjirou's about to get his Xros Loader." He nodded to Mahiro, "Thanks for the assist on that, by the way."

"What?" Mahiro blinked, "but I didn't do anything."

"Not yet, anyways," Dracomon chuckled, and before anyone could reply to that remark, there was a burst of light- and a familiar cry of a familiar name.

And then Zenjirou Tsurugi went to town against Musyamon- who became Kotemon at the end of the fight through a purification attack.

"And that's that fight settled," Ren nodded as he made a mental note, and a literal check mark being placed in a notebook that he'd pulled out of thin air. "I swear, you kids have it easy these days, just zapping around without a care. Do you know how tedious it is for me to make sure every single thread is in the right place for everyone to make the same choices they already did? You're not making it very easy for me when you go and pop up in strange places, you know."

"We're still trying to get the hang of it," Mahiro said. "No need to lecture us..."

"Yeah yeah, whatever." Ren raised his dirtied, beaten, and old Xros Loader then said, "Now get back before you draw Quartzmon's eyes down on us."

"But why did you ask us to stay for?" Kuuko asked.

"Zap-" Was Ren's only answer.

And then the duo disappeared with a flash of blue light from the Xros Loader.

Dracomon chuckled, "So why did you ask them to stay then?"

"Because they're going to wind up watching _his __**wife**_ next," Ren motioned his head towards the triumphant Zenjirou. "They're going to need **context**."

"Ah- I see," Dracomon nodded.

"No, you don't," Ren joked, "your eyes are sewn onto your mask."

"Alas! It is true!" Dracomon mock fainted.

* * *

**"Reintroduction."**

**Written by Calum Traveler**

* * *

Kartoffel looked fairly unchanged for a year's absence, Fam noted as Dio flew the small ship down towards a landing pad.

Sure- the ships in the scrap heap seemed to be smaller and smaller, most likely remnants of battles long since passed, but the trading district seemed in higher demand than ever before.

At least, that's how it seemed from the air.

Merry, meanwhile, seemed excited just to see it all. "Wow!" Her eyes were wide, "Everything's so different than how I remember!"

A time gap of...how many years was it? Twelve? Ten?... would probably do that, Fam reasoned.

Millia had been slightly off put by Merry's changed eyes (but who hadn't?) and was somewhat startled by the discovery that a month-to-year ratio had been put into effect when it came to communications with the Digital World due to Fam's disappearance straight off of the SpaceTrailmon. (Which, Fam explained, had lead into all the Kyoryuger stuff. (She neglected to mention being possessed by a suit of armor)).

But beyond all of that, Millia seemed glad that Fam had come back, especially with help from Xros Heart (even if they were the next generation).

Pteragordon, for the time being, had returned back to the Spirit Base, which they could access easily through the teleport pad that Merry had hidden inside the tan trenchcoat that she was carrying in her arms like it was the most important thing in the world...Which it probably was, all things considered.

"Touching Down!" Dio called out as the small ship landed, and then the engines shut off with a grunt of a job well done. Millia lead Fam, Merry, and Teddy off while Dio stayed on board. "I'm gonna refuel and head back to Anatoray. I've gotta tell everyone from the Silvius that you're back, Fam! We're gonna throw you the biggest welcome back party in the history of-!"

"Woah, Dio! That's not really necessary," Fam said, shaking her head 'no' and waving her hands in a dismissive manner. "I really don't wanna make a big splash, you know?"

"Aww, okay," Dio frowned for a moment, then grinned anyways, "I'm still going to let everyone know, though! They're all going to want to know what you've been up to!"

"Alright, that's fine!" Internally, Fam gave a sigh of relief.

"A 'Big Splash', Fam?" Millia asked, grinning slightly. "You- who rescued the Augusta, flew in the Grand Race, and mysteriously vanished for a year only to return standing at the side of a Queen- don't want to make a 'big Splash'?"

"C'mmon, Millia," Fam huffed, "you know how it is..."

"You're lucky it's still early enough in the morning that most people are still half-asleep," Millia remarked. "There'll be rumors all day before long."

"So let's get to Giselle's and get outta sight then," Fam grumbled.

"Aw, but I wanna sight see!" Merry complained.

"You can sight see after we leave the teleport stone somewhere safe," Fam replied.

"How does that work exactly?" Millia asked as they walked familair steps up towards one of Kartoffel's higher-tiered houses.

"Bragigas was sort of torn across dimensions for a while," Merry answered, "so his body's gotten this sort of teleportation power going on. As long as he can work off of a point zero and himself, he can figure out where to put any teleport pads he wants to."

"Originally, it worked off of the summoning system for the Voltasaurs that Kaiyumi built," Fam added, "but since we broke that connection leaving Tokyo-3, we have to place at least one stone manually so Bragigas can choose where to put the other stones, usually only temporarily though. We don't want random people just walking in and getting teleported inside."

"Haha, remember the time Eri broke into the lab?" Merry asked. "We were chasing her all over trying to catch her!"

"I was out fighting Stricteach," Fam said, "but yeah, I remember you telling me about how she bit Yumeji on the hand!"

"It's just a love bite!" Merry said in as tongue-in-cheek-y of a tone of voice possible. Both Kyoryugers shared a laugh, which made Teddy frown.

"I feel like I'm missing out on something," He lamented.

"Life moves on, Teddy. We've had our own share of adventures that would sound just as strange to them as it does to us," Millia remarked, then smiled at Fam and Merry. "Your life has certainly had its fair share of adventures since you left, Fam."

"It's...been eventful," Fam agreed with a nod. "Not all of them pleasant, but...there's been some fun times in there."

* * *

Félicité Vingt sat on the edge of the garage's landing balcony breathing in the early morning air.

As the second-oldest daughter of the family, Félicité found that there was an odd serenity in being up before everyone else. That was probably why the oldest sister of the famile, Giselle, was often up just as early most mornings, especially with the wedding on fast approach.

"hm-mm-mh," she humed just a bit, "hm-hmm-hmm hmm." It wasn't any real melody she knew by heart, just some random thought appearing in her mind as she watched Kartoffel slowly wake up.

"Oiii, Félicité!" Félicité flinched slightly as she heard Dio's voice call out from a vanship that was raising past the docks and going past her.

She couldn't see him, but no doubt Dio was waving at her. She waved back at the ship as it went up higher. Strange- hadn't she just seen that ship come in for a landing? What was Dio up to now?

"Look down!" Dio called out and that made Félicité frown.

"Down?" She asked herself, but alas, Dio's ship was already out of range.

Félicité then heard the sound of feet climbing steps, and the sound of chatter along with it.

Visitors? This early in the morning?

Ahh- so Dio had been dropping someone off.

There were familiar tones to some of the voices- and one rather unfamiliar one- but it was the familiar voices that Félicité focused on.

The first was... "Honestly, though," Turan accent, female, "I seriously don't know how you managed to pull that one off." Queen Millia!

That made the second voice easier to place, same Turan accent, only boyish, "I agree completely! That sounds simply amazing!" Teddy. So they were going to have Tea for breakfast, sweet!

"Haha- Ol' neck-loose was the only monster we girls pretty much had to solo," there was that unfamiliar voice, female. What accent was that? It sounded somewhat like the pilot and captain pair from the SpaceTrailmon... Was it someone from that world? "The way the guys were acting though had me concerned for 'em. Candelira was just too focused on her own ego!"

"Honestly, though," third familiar voice, female as well. Disturbingly familiar, though slightly gruffer than what Félicité's memory said it should be. "What even was that guy's theme? It still doesn't make any sense to me. Neck bones equaling weak in the knees?" Familiar patterns of voice and word pauses...

"Fam!?" Félicité's eyes widened, and she jumped to her feet to run over to the stairs.

Indeed, climbing up the stairs were the familiar faces of Queen Millia, Teddy, and Fam, along with the unknown girl with blue hair and... what was with those eyes?

"Félicité!" Millia called up with a smile upon seeing her. "Good morning."

"Fam's back?" Félicité asked, eyes wide.

"Hey there," Fam gave a small wave with her right hand while quickly placing her left hand into a coat pocket.

"Where have you been!?" Félicité ran down the stairs to give the older girl a hug. "It's just been so quiet without you here!"

"Aw, come on, I'm sure it hasn't been that different without me," Fam laughed it off, even though she did put her right arm around Félicité in returning the hug.

Félicité's eyes narrowed, and then she reached for Fam's left arm and pulled it out of the pocket so she could get a good look at...

"What the...?" What in the world was this? Some kind of gauntlet thing shaped like a bird's head and had a folded up wing on the side. "What is it?"

"It's a transformation device!" the other girl spoke up, grinning. "It lets us become super heroes and fight off the badguys! Fam gets the cool gauntlet though! Everyone else just got caution tape guns!"

And as the girl spoke, Félicité's eyes fell down on the holster and gun that was strapped around her left leg. "Adelle is going to want to steal that, I can promise you that," she finally said. "René too, probably."

* * *

Giselle stopped writing in the book in front of her as the sound of muffled conversation came through the door.

"Visitors...?" Giselle mused as she stood up to go walk to the door...

And then Félicité opened it, and lead in a face that Giselle hadn't seen in a little over a year.

"Fam..." Giselle stared on in surprise.

"Hey, Gigi," Fam waved with an awkward smile on her face. "I'm back."

The hug that followed was enough to bring a smile to Millia's face.

* * *

**A.N.: Say it with me now: "D'awww..." We might be focusing on the present for a while now, although that's all dependent on if the Life Fibers don't start acting up.  
**


	7. High School Rock

"**School House Rock."**

**Written By Calum Traveler.**

* * *

"So lemme get this straight," Ryuuko began, "this Nui girl's your adopted _little sister_-" Satsuki nodded. "-Your mother is an insane psycopath who wants to cover the world in cloth fibers and _blow up the entire planet-_" Satsuki nodded again. "-And Nui was sent to murder my father because he was building Senketsu and the scissor blades in resistance, but instead of Nui killing him and returning home with anything, some imaginary friend kills my dad instead and they...what? Run off skipping into the sunset while my house burns behind them?"

"That about sums it up," Satsuki took a sip of her tea. "For years now, Nui has... been unhinged, even more so than before. Or so we thought. Ragyo grew increasingly... concerned that Nui would not follow orders once the time came. When Nui went off the radar, our 'mother' put all of her attention elsewhere. As far as I know, Ragyo hasn't even heard of your appearances here at Honnouji." She paused, "Of course, she _did_ hear of my swiping Junketsu from the family vault, but I managed to pass that off as concern that 'if someone had killed Nui, they may be after me next', and that I'd need it for protection, and after that, Ragyo has completely ignored my actions here... Naturally, if I report to her that Nui was sighted, she'll review everything up until now..."

Ryuuko and Satsuki were currently sitting in Satsuki's grand **[Student Council Chamber]** after the results of the interupted Naturals Election. Ryuuko had made it to fighting Satsuki, and so the older girl kept good on her promise to explain everything.

"Ah, yeah...this really is quite a pickle, isn't it?" Ryuuko stared flatly ahead at one of the giant television monitors on the wall. "So what exactly are we supposed to do about it?"

"My plan was to get you to work alongside me, and have the Elite Four stand underneath us," Satsuki explained. "We were to stand together and back stab Ragyo all at once when she shows up for the Sports Festival."

"Sports?" Ryuuko asked, raising and eyebrow.

"Essentially a test bed for the Life Fiber overwrite that she plans for the rest of the earth," Satsuki explained. "I don't intend to let that happen, but given Nui's recent involvement..."

"What can we do?" Senketsu asked, and Ryuuko echoed the question.

"For now? Not much except hold back on the report until we actually understand what went down," Satsuki began to plan. "That creature...apparently it's not just a figment of Nui's imagination. It isn't one of her constructs either- it's too... too foreign in its design."

"That's true," Senketsu agreed. "I never sensed a single life fiber coming from that monster. The girl was absolutely humming with them, however."

"So we've got an interloper then," Ryuuko summarized. "You said 'constructs' earlier, does that mean Nui's got some control over Life Fibers?"

"Our 'mother' was actually the 'father' in Nui's birth," Satsuki grimaced. "Ragyo contributed some of her DNA to the Original Life Fiber, and Nui was born as a hybrid."

"Original...?" Ryuuko blinked. "Life Fiber?"

"The **[ORIGINAL LIFE FIBER]** was the alien creature slash seed ship that descended on earth well before written history had began," Satsuki explained. "They chose a life form to evolve into 'sentient' and 'human' and did such. It's why humans wear clothes while other beasts do not. Life Fibers wove themselves into new clothes and their hosts wore them, feeding off of the life energy of their hosts."

"But why not hybridize like Nui?" Ryuuko asked.

"It's extremely risky," Satsuki glanced to the side. "I once had a younger sister that wasn't Nui. Ragyo experimented on her shortly after birth, implanted life fibers in her... She died in that experiment, and it drove my father mad. He told me what had happened and what I should do to control Junketsu. Life Fibers need to be woven in certain ways into a living body or else they short circuit the nervous system. For them, being worn is the only way to live. ...But my father soon died before I could learn more, or we could plan together. Ragyo had him killed. A 'car accident', I was told."

"What a Bitch!" Ryuuko snarled slightly. "She's just a regular old father killer, isn't she?"

"Apparently so," Satsuki smiled, ever so slightly. Then it was squashed away. "At any rate, I've used Nui's...apparent air-headedness as a distraction away from myself, as I've said. This academy, the Uniforms, everything has been built up all in preparation for the moment we run Ragyo through and through."

"From what I've heard," Ryuuko said, "you can count me in. Even if she didn't deliver the killing blow, she's still responsible for sending Nui at my father. I want that bitch's head on a silver platter."

"Oh we're most definitely going to do that too," Satsuki nodded. "Her connection to the Life Fibers... it may have twisted her beyond human. I only have my suspicions, but given that her hair is practically a rainbow-"

"Wait, what?" Ryuuko went to interrupt when, suddenly, there was a burst of feedback from the P.A. system.

"What now?" Senketsu grumbled.

_"Ahhem, Ahhem,"_ came a suave voice that few in this world would recognize as Ryouma Mogami's. _"Testing, one two three. Can you hear me?"_

_"Yup, Ryou~me! Loud and clear!"_

"NUI!" Satsuki shot straight up.

* * *

"Hello, Honnouji Acadamey," Ryouma began speaking into Principal's microphone. "This is **[Mogami, Ryouma]** Speaking, you may also know me better by another name, **[Quartzmon].**"

There was a shudder through the building at his true name being spoken.

"Why am I speaking to you?" Ryouma shrugged, "Well, we're just here having fun, really. Me and my girl..." He glanced to Nui and held out the Microphone.

"Hiiiii~!" Nui waved at it, even as she jumped on the hog-tied Principal's back like he was a trampoline. (Thankfully without shoes of any kind, especially the high heels she'd been wearing before.) "**[Nui Harime-chan]** at your service! _Ja-jaan_!"

"Isn't she adorable?" Ryouma asked with a chuckle.

* * *

From a random Classroom, Mako tried her hardest to pull open the doors, even as Ryouma continued.

_"Now, some of you may have noticed that I've locked the doors to every single room in Honnouji. Nui and I happen to be behind just one of them,"_ Ryouma's smirk could be heard as he chuckled. _"Find us in time? Well, we'll leave you alone until it suits us to come bug you again. Fail to find us?"_

A pause.

_"We'll play games every day until the end of time!"_ Nui's voice followed, giggling all the way.

"What a creepy weirdo!" Mako narrowed her eyes before taking a deep breath and "RAAAAH!" tore the sliding classroom door off of its hingers.

Inside, one Shinjiro Nagita looked over at his side, where Maiko Ogura sat next to him, and said, "Woah! She's pretty strong!"

"Definitely!" Maiko agreed.

* * *

_**~Don't Lose Your Waaayyy~**_

**KABLAM!** a Door exploded.

**"[LIFE FIBER SYNCHRONIZE! **_**KAMUI SENKETSU!]" **_Ryuuko stepped out through the exploded door to the room she and Satsuki had been in, and glared out into the hallways. "Alright," she began, "Where the hell is the Principal's office?"

Satsuki stepped out a moment later, glanced around, and then said, "To the left, then the second right, down a floor-"

"Forget that! I'm taking the express route!" Ryuuko just tore out her scissor blade and cut a giant circle in the floor- dropping down one level without actually having to go through the first two steps.

"-Or we could just go cutting holes in the floor, that works too," Satsuki muttered to herself, and mentally added up a talley of expenses that would be needed to fix the damage before jumping down after Ryuuko.

* * *

"RYUUKO-CHAAAAN!" Mako yelled out as she ran down the halls- pulling random classroom doors open and quite resoundingly breaking the locks every time as she then looked inside to see if her friend was inside, and then left for the next room just as immediately due to Ryuuko not being there.

Naturally, in the process of doing this, she'd drawn a small following of Gamagori, Ira, and Jakzure, Nonon, plus a handful of One Star students who were just following due to the impressive sight of a No-Star breaking every single door.

"I gotta hand it to that underachiever," Nonon remarked, "she's got a way with tearing down doors."

Gamagori was silent, instead fighting back a blush as he watched Mako tearing doors down with as much ease as he himself had with the door that had suddenly swung shut in his face just a few minutes earlier.

* * *

"Okay- Question," Satsuki ventured as Ryuuko slashed a wall open. "Are you just destroying walls now in an effort to find Nui as quickly as possible, or are you just doing it to damage the building? Because there was a perfectly good door right there that you could have just kicked down."

"Bit of both, honestly," Ryuuko chuckled, stepping over a small chunk of wall that was barely hanging onto the aformentioned door into the reception room of the Principal's office. "Oi! Nui! If you're in here, come on out! I want my sword's twin!"

The principal's office door swung open, and the Principal's head peeked out.

"Neigh!" He said, most of his face whited out, and a harnes made up of life fibers grit between his teeth as Nui rode him out through the door- grinning much like a young child would riding on their very own pony.

Ryuuko and Satsuki just stared on in abstract horror. Finally, it was Senketsu who broke them out of their silence with a simple three word statement which made Ryuuko repeat it in slightly different phrasing, "What the hell is wrong with this girl?!"

"Yaaay!" Nui clapped her hands. "You win the game!" She leaned back in her 'mount' and caleld through the door, "Ryou~Me, tell 'em what they won!"

And then out through the door strode Ryouma, wearing a business suit that looked like it belonged on a game show.

"Weeeelll! They've won a whole month of no interfeerence from us whatso ever!" And then a big block of subtitles appeared behind him, practically breaking down the wall in the process, reading:

**[Offer subject to change by the whims of the offering parties. **  
**Offer not valid in Sweets Zone, Tokyo City, Canyon Land,**  
**Valenwood, The Shivvering Isles, Hawaii, Alaska, or Canada.]**

"CONGRATULATIONS!" the Principal suddenly yelled- even as Nui and Ryouma clapped rapidly...

And then the two of them disappeared in a blink of the eye as the subtitles behind them popped like baloons.

"Now this I can safely report," Satsuki said flatly. "I think..."

Mako came running up mere moments later- "Woah! What a battle! Mako missed it already!" She turned to Ryuuko, "You really blew the place up, didn't you, Ryuuko-chan?"

"neigh," was all the Principal said in the void of silence that was Ryuuko's blank stare.

* * *

**A.N.: I literally have no idea with this one. **


	8. Can o' Dinosaurs

**A.N.: Check out the latest updates to the XWAU02 Rewrite on AO3! The 7swords arc has been finished, and the ending fight has been extended!**

* * *

**"Topping it all off..."**

**Written by Calum Traveler**

* * *

Fam had barely returned for all of one minute, and despite her insistence to everyone that she didn't want to make such a big fuss about returning, she had to cave into Giselle, Félicité, and Millia's combined insistence of wanting to know everything about being a Kyoryuger.

"I wasn't there from the start so Merry would do a better job explaining that part, really!"

And yet despite that, Fam still shoved the spotlight away from her and onto someone else.

"Aw, alright, Fam!" Merry grinned savagely, "But I'm going to pepper it with so many puns you're going to be correcting me anyways!"

"I doubt it!" Fam laughed it off.

"Buuuut first!" Merry continued to grin, "I've gotta put the teleport pad somewhere-"

"I'll do that while you're explaining," Fam grabbed the trenchcoat-wrapped stone from Merry and quickly absconded before Merry could protest.

"Is Fam alright?" Giselle asked. "She seems a little...Distracted."

"Well," Merry began with a slight scowl, "I can't blame her, honestly. She probably doesn't want to talk about those first few days..."

"Did something happen?" Félicité asked.

"You could say that..." Merry sighed. "If I tell you guys, promise not to tell her I told you?"

Nods came from all around the table.

* * *

"guhh..." Fam exhaled deeply upon reaching the garage, "What am I doing?" She began searching for a clear spot to put the Teleport stone down at. "Here I am coming in for Gigi, and they all just want to know what I've been doing? I Mean... I guess it makes sense. It's been about a year for both of us..."

There- in the corner seemed to be good spot.

"Suck it up, Fam, just suck it up and deal with it," Fam told herself as she went over to the corner and knelled down to start unwrapping the Teleport Stone from the coat Merry had gotten on the last world they were on. "You're better than this. You told Roxy what happened, so you can tell Gigi too. Gigi's our sister. She'll understand..." She began to lower the stone down...

"Understand what?" said Davis Motomiya from behind, and just slightly above her.

Fam let out a startled scream as she stumbled backwards and let the stone go all in the same motion. (The teleport stone hit the garage floor, and immediately sunk down into place, slightly catty corner from how it should have been, but otherwise intact.)

"Woah, geeze, sorry," Davis apologized as he started climbing down the ladder. "Didn't mean to startle you."

Fam, lying on her back, just glared up at Davis, "What were you even doing up there? Wasn't that my old room?"

"Was is right!" Vmon's head popped out through the opening next. "Now it's gonna be Félicité's room!"

"She's moving up into my room?" Fam frowned, still staring up at the ladder leading upwards. "How come?"

"She needs the space, getting older and all," Davis offered as he finished climbing down. "Plus René and Adelle are getting their own separate beds too. Then there's the Baby coming..."

"Baby!?" Fam shot upright onto her feet, eyes going wide. "You mean you and Gigi-?" Davis froze up as Fam trailed off, staring at him blankly almost in some kind of confused horror.

Silence fell for a few moments before Vmon laughed and asked: "Wow, she sure figured that one out quickly, didn't she Davish?"

Fam shook herself out of her shocked state first, and walked over and gave Davis a hug.

That was enough to make Davis blink out of his own stunned state. "Er...Fam?"

"Congrats, Davis," Fam said. "You and Gigi... I just wasn't expecting all of this coming back."

"Thanks, Fam," Davis chuckled slightly, and returned the hug. "We weren't even sure if you were coming back or not... I mean, where were we even supposed to send the invitations to?"

"The future, apparently," Fam chuckled, and then coughed slightly before pulling away from the hug to get some slightly fresher air. "Gah, _Oh my_! *cough*Ugh, you _**still**_ smell like Apples..."

"Damn it. I was hoping that perfume I imported would mask it for the wedding..." Davis grumbled, and then glared up at Vmon. "You said I smelled fine!"

"Hey, don't blame me!" Vmon shrugged, "I've gotten used to it by now!"

* * *

Milla was shocked to find out about how Fam had become a Kyoryuger. "She stole a sword technique from a living suit of armor?!" She repeated, nearly in awe.

"That's..." Giselle blinked. "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react to that."

"Yeah! They really sort of rubbed off on each other when Fam did that," Merry nodded. "A bit of Fam's niceness got left behind in Dogold, while she stole some of his fighting style. It's like... equivalent exchange or something like that."

"So she's nervous that we'd think she'd changed too much..." Giselle sighed. "I don't know whether that's to say she's changed or she hasn't. It seems like something she'd do."

* * *

"Sooo..." Davis eyed the Gaburichanger on Fam's wrist, and then the stone slate merged into the floor, "What's with the dinosaur motif?"

"One of Kaiyumi's projects..." Fam admitted, "_Buuuuuut_, me and the other Kyoryugers quit and stole everything after we beat the big bad." She scratched at the back of her head while smiling nervously. "Promise not to tell?"

"What's there to tell?" Davis asked in return. "Besides when I got dropped off a year ago, the last time I spoke to anyone from Xros Heart was... well, the last time we worked together, Three years ago for me. I haven't really kept in touch beyond the occasional 'all's clear' report."

"It's still hard to believe you were only fourteen when we flew into the Grand Exile like that..." Fam trailed off for a moment. "Everything we did then seems so..." She shook her head. "I dunno, weird, I guess?"

"Weird how?" Vmon asked.

At that moment, a familiar samba beat rang out from one of Fam's pockets.

"One sec..." Fam pulled out her Mobuckle and answered. "What's up?"

* * *

"Just a heads up, Torin's detected a wave of mischief," Yumeji reported, "we're going to go take a look and see what's up. If we need backup, head our way."

* * *

"Alright," Fam nodded. "Just let me know."

_"Right,"_ Yumeji then ended the call.

"...So..." Fam flashed a girn, "Sort of about that weird."

Davis and Vmon exchanged confused glances.

* * *

**"Interweave."**

**Written by Calum Traveler.**

* * *

"Run! Run!" A small group of children yelled in fear as they ran deeper into town, away from the outskirts that were now so scarry.

For Caleb, that was a sign of trouble, and he ran towards it.

"Let's go, guys!" He ordered.

"Right," the other four Kyoryugers with him nodded and followed.

"Remember- Quartzmon Towers have hourglasses on them somewhere," Roxy reminded.

The five of them rounded the corner and slowed to a stop as they saw the sight before them.

Adults were just standing still as strange, flat, floating, white tuxedo-like things drifted towards them.

"Oh My!" Inaba gasped. "I don't see any hourglasses!"

"Guys, I don't think those are Towers," Eri began to panic.

"Look at those strings though-" Yumeji pointed at the red strings trailing away into the sky from the backs of those floating creatures. "I think they're puppet!"

"We'll just have to cut them down then!" Caleb ordered, and then yelled at the cloth things. "OI! WHATEVER YOU ARE!"

The floating suits all stopped- some of them mid-jaw opening- and turned towards the Kyoryugers.

There was a sound of a taught string being strung, and it sent shivers down the Kyoryugers spines.

"Wow that's super creepy," Roxy grimaced.

"Let's do it, everyone!" Caleb drew out a battery and his Gaburevolver.

"RIGHT!" Nods followed as those motions were followed.

"BRAVE IN!" The Kyoryugers held out their batteries and activated them before slotting them into their Gaburevolvers.

**_GABURINCHO! GABUTYRA!_** Caleb closed the mouth on his Gaburevolver.

**_GABURINCHO! PARASAGUN!_** Inaba winked at the creatures.

**_GABURINCHO! ZAKUTOR!_** Yumeji narrowed his eyes.

**_GABURINCHO! DRICERA!_** Roxy rolled her shoulders.

**_GIGA GABURINCHO! BRAAAGIGAS!_** Eri moved into the ready position.

"KYORYU CHANGE!" All five yelled, and spun the barrels on their revolvers.

The Cloth creatures roared- and flew forwards in attack as a samba beat roared from the Gaburevolvers alongside one rock melody.

"Woah!" Caleb ducked and spun under some that lunged at him, and then delivered an upwards kick at one that knocked it backwards into another one of its twins. "Hah!"

"Not a chance!" Inaba whacked one of the cloth things on the "head" with his Gaburevolver and then spun around to deliver a left hook to another.

"Wow!" Roxy yelped as she back flipped away from one of the cloth things- "What are these things made out of!?"

"HAH!" Yumeji kicked one away, "Not sure-" he ducked under an attack and then grabbed one of them by the arm to throw them into another. "They seem feral though!"

"Definitelty not like the Paramonsters!" Eri agreed as she jumped onto a table to avoid an attack, and then used some of the creatures as stepping stones as she leaped across them in time to her rock 'n' roll tune.

The Kyoryugers quickly regrouped, and aimed straight at the tangled knot of cloth creatures- whose strings had been tangled up thanks to the Kyoryugeers fancy footwork.

"FIRE!"

Five energy blasts shot out in the shape of Dinosaur heads, soaring towards the cloth creatures before **_CHOMP!_** **-KABOOM!-** and swooping back around onto the Kyoryugers- their clothes vanishing into white light that solidified into their multicolored Plug Suits as the energy blasts condensed down onto them with another **_CHOMP!_**

The surivivng cloth creatures hissed and strung their strings in annoyance and frustration as the Kyoryugers stood before them in Red, Black, Pink, Green, and Silver.

Meanwhile, underneath a table that was a quickly chosen hiding spot, a young kid's eyes widened in surprise- "Amazing!"

"HEAR OUR ROAR!" Came Caleb's voice from the red one- "**[THE FANGED BRAVE! KYORYU RED!]**" He struck a pose.

"**[THE HOTSHOT BRAVE!]**" Inaba's voice came from "**[KYORYU BLACK!]**" as he struck his pose.

"**[THE SLASHING BRAVE!]**" Yumeji called out from the helmet of "**[KYORYU GREEN!]**" as he hit his motions.

"**[THE HORNED BRAVE!]" **Roxy's said from underneath "**[KYORYU PINK!]**"'s suit as she hit her poses.

"**[THE RADIANT BRAVE!]**" Eri called out as she snapped "**[KYORYU SILVER!]**"'s fingers in her borrowed pose.

"THE STRONGEST AND BRAVEST IN HISTORY!" The five called out- "**[ZYUDEN SENTAI!** _**KYORYUGER!**_**]**_**"**_

_**"IT'S GETTING WILD!"**_ Kyoryu Red called out- _"JUST TRY TO STOP US!"_

The Cloth creatures all backed away at the fearsome roll call. Clearly these Kyoryugers had a lot of practice in fighting monsters before... and as for those transformation sequences? Clearly the work of a...!

Suddenly- from the sky above- a giant, 3D version of the cloth creatures landed in front of them, different in that there was clearly something physical with mass inside the cloth being.

It roared an animalsitic roar that revealed that there was a face inside its mouth, looking like it had been severely dehydrated beyond recognition.

Kyoryu Black took a step back in surprise- "That's a new one!"

"Ah," Kyoryu Green nodded as he drew Feather's Edge. "We'll just have to cut it down to size too, then."

"Oh yes," Kyoryu Silver nodded, drawing her Viola Bow. "We'll show them just how _Unlucky_ they are to have run into us!"

"Let's go!" Kyoryu Pink said, and with that, they leaped into action.

* * *

MiniTyra sniffed at one of the defeated cloth-constructs while the Kyoryugers fought the rest of these strange things.

"Gyak!" MiniTyra nearly spat out the +1 battery keeping him small in disgust at the smell coming from the cloth being. Organic cloth? Cloth fibers with actual _blood_ running through its veins?

"Bwam?" MiniSpino hopped over, and sniffed the same cloth creature.

"Gya Gya!" MiniTyra explained. "Gya!"

"Bwaaam!" MiniSpino shook her head out at the smell of the defeated construct, and reported, "Bwam Bwam!"

MiniTyra reacted in surprise: it was the same kind of fiber that Nui had used to control Nyarko!?

"Gya! Gya!" MiniTyra looked over at the fight- "GYA!"

"BWAM!" MiniSpino nodded in agreement, and together, they leaped into battle.

"GYAA!"

"BWAM!"

With several chomps and several tooth-searing slashes- the chibi-ized Voltasaurs delivered as much damage as they could to the largest of the creatures- the one that had a living person inside.

Ugh- so that was where the blood came from.

These things were going to _**PAY.**_

MinTyra and MiniSpino leaped backwards into their partners hands.

"Woah! You sure, MiniTyra?" Red asked.

"Alright, MiniSpino," Silver nodded.

And then the Voltasaurs transformed into their weapon forms with a **_TWISTAROUND!_**

**_OH! PARTY TIME!_**

Red and Silver hit the buttons that triggered the transformation sequences, and went about their motions.

Silver ran MiniSpino's barrel down her right arm- Red dancing to the beat of some samba music.

"FIRE!" Both yelled out- aiming upwards and firing off bursts of energy shaped like their chibi-partners in their 'normal' modes.

The bursts circled up and then came down with a CHOMP!

**"[KYORYU RED: CARNIVAL!]"**

**"[THE PLUCKY BRAVE! KYORYU NAVY! **_**ARMED ON!**_**]"**

_*cue Choushinka! Kyoryu Beat*_

"Alright," Carnival clapped his hands and jumped just a bit, "Let's show 'em what we're made of, Minityra!"

"Let's see how they like our Flute Buster, Minispino!" Silver now transformed into Navy said as she lifted up that boomerang.

And with that- they leaped back into the battle.

**Tatakau naka umareta negai**

Carnival leaped in and gave a spinning side kick to the beast- meanwhile, Navy jumped through and slashed with the Flute Buster.

The Covered creature yelped- and jumped backwards from the attack.

**Spirit ga kanaeru kiseki**

"HAAH!" Black and Pink then leaped into the air over Carnival's shoulders- firing off with their Gaburevolvers.

The Covered monster's thick skin absorbed the blasts, and just seemed to make it angrier as it lashed out in an attempt to hit back.

**Futatsu no tsuyosa wo hitotsu ni kasanete**

And then Green leaped in from behind- slashing at its back where its own supporting string was severed.

It yelled in surprise- and suddenly gained several eyes along its front side.

**Nemureru chikara wo yobisamasu**

Eyes which Navy and Carnival took aim with their voltasaur partners and fired off.

The creature roared- and began scrambling to take cover behind it's flat companions.

**Odore Carnival! Kanari up!**

It did it little good as the Kyoryugers all leaped in, attacking with their blasters and shot the strings connecting the remaining 2d cloth creatures- causing them to go flat and lifeless.

**Survival no step! Matsuri no hajimari da!**

The Covered Creature glanced around in horror- and began to try to absorb its fallen companions in vain...

**Kimero dancing no action! High tension na beat! Mou tomerarenai ze!**

Black and Pink shot them away- while Green and Navy leaped in with their swords- slashing and dicing at the Cloth creature's tough hide.

**Yuuki no rhythm ni kokoro odorase**

Carnival then combined MiniTyra and aimed straight at the beast. "ZYUDEN CARNIVAL FINISH!" With a spin of the barrel- MiniTyra's mouth glowed with a build up of energy.

**Kurayami futtobasu ze**

The Creature glanced side to side- hoping to escape- only to find that all of the Kyoryugers had drawn their blasters and had spun their barrels with a power up attack **_VAMOLA! MUCHO!_**

**Shoubu no toki da, Carnival!**

Five energy blasts shot out and slammed into the Cloth Creature in a single convergence- and **KABOOM!**

**Tsuyoki ryuu no ouja**

Fragments of the beasts' hide went flying in burning chunks as the worn out host colapsed to their knees unconscious.

_*end song*_

"Well that was quick," Black remarked.

"Do you think this person will be okay?" Pink asked as she checked on the collapsed person.

"Probably not," Green glanced around at the still blanked out adults, "I'm more concerned about _them_ waking up..."

Minispino let out a quick "bwam!" of information, and Navy reacted to the news of the fibers origin. "What? Really!? The same fibers Nui used?!"

And then MiniTyra separated from Caleb's Gaburevolver and echoed a few "Gya"s of an idea.

"You want us to take a dead creature back to base?" Carnival asked.

"Gya Gya!"

"Bwam Bwam!"

The Kyoryugers shared uneasy glances.

"Well, If you think that's a good idea," Navy accepted. "I'll be willing to take the risk."

"Yui will probably want a good look at these things too," Carnival nodded.

"Let's get back then," Black then noticed the kid hiding under the table. "Oi! Kid!"

"Huh? Me?" The kid asked, stepping out from under the safety of the table.

"Do you think you can keep an eye out on these people?" Black asked. "If they don't snap out of it soon, you're going to want to get them to a hospital."

"Okay! I can do that, mister!" the boy then asked, "Who are you guys anyways?"

"That's simple!" Pink said, "We were passing through for a wedding! But we can't just turn our backs on civilians in need, so we're going to put an end to these monster attacks for you!"

"Awesome!" the kid said, "Nobody's every believed us kids about the monsters kidnapping people before!"

"Eh?" Green reacted. "You mean that you've seen the kidnappings?"

"The monsters avoid the kids," The kid explained. "It's always the adults they take, and anyone of _them_ that doesn't get taken never even remembers the monsters appearing in the first place!"

Pink looked to Navy and said, "Somehow, I think our job just got a whole lot more complicated."

"Yeah," Navy nodded in agreement.

* * *

**"Understanding."**

**Written by Calum Traveler.**

* * *

"Annnnd..." Callie finished attaching a small circuit onto Senketsu's eye patch. "Done!" She stood up and coughed politely. "If you can, please repeat "Testing" back to me."

"Testing back to me," Senketsu repeated.

After a moment, Callie frowned, "Alright, I got some faint feedback on that..." she reached up to the ear bud in her ear, and pulled it out. "Earbud doesn't work, so let's try..." She pulled a small A2 connector, practically ancient in terms of Synchronization technology, out of a box and attached it onto her forehead. "Repeat the last line to me, please."

"The Last line To me, Please," Senketsu repeated.

"Oi, quit it smart ass," Callie remarked sternly...and then practically squealed with glee. "Say that again!"

"Say what again?" Senketsu looked up at her with an expectant eye.

"Eeeeeee!" Callie clapped. "Say something else!"

"Wait- is this actually working?" Senketsu asked.

"Yes! I think it is working!" Callie nodded, and then threw her arms into the air and cheered. "YEESSSS! I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY SYNCHRONIZED MYSELF TO A FLYING MOTORBIKE!" and then she started laughing with unrestrained glee.

"Yggdrasil! Callie," Yui remarked as she covered her ears, "could you be any less loud?"

"Ehehe..." Callie grinned sheepishly at her lab-partner. "Sorry."

Dogold pulled an earplug from his ear, "So I take it the loud screaming is good news?"

"Apparently she can hear my voice now," Senketsu remarked.

"I can hear the vespa-thing's voice now!" Callie repeated, "And he sounds a lot like you, Dogold!"

"What?" Dogold asked sarcastically, "No! Impossible. I'm truly one of a kind! Nobody else has a body with a history like mine!"

"No, that's my line," Senketsu retorted in an equally sarcastic tone. "I was hand crafted with unique threads that have since been fused to a giant flying motorbike in circumstances I doubt have ever happened before."

"See?" Callie motioned at both of them "You're both being really really sarcastic!"

Yui coughed, "Um, Callie. You realize you're the only one that can hear him right now?"

"Oh, right," Callie flinched as she remembered, "right! The A2 clips," she smiled, "basically it works just like the Voltasaur translations, but I've got to figure out how to make him broadcast to everyone. Until then though, everyone else can just put on one of the spare A2's."

"So long story short, we don't need to go swapping bodies now so we can talk to it?" Dogold asked, and then chuckled. "Good. Because despite what I said to Fam earlier, I'd really rather not get that swapping battery used on me again."

"I'd rather not get stuck inside your head either, you scruffy looking-"

"Woah woah woah!" Callie cut off the voice only she could hear at that moment. "Hey! I don't think that language is appropriate right now, you!" She paused, "Okay, um, I think we need to introduce ourselves. What's your name?"

"I am a **[Kamui]**, the daughter of my creator named me **[Senketsu]**."

"Fresh Blood?" Callie blinked. "Huh, well, I guess that matches what Fam's told us about you."

"I don't need blood as to really survive since I was fused to this thing, but in order to unlock my full potential, I do require large amounts of it," Senketsu then changed subjects. "But in all seriousness, kid! I think you're my new favorite person as of right now! You have no idea how hard its' been to just talk to thin air for the last year like I have with nobody around to listen and oh WOW I swear I was going crazy there for a while-"

Callie started to stare silently at Senketsu as he rambled on, which made Yui and Dogold concerned.

"Are you okay, Callie?" Yui asked.

And then Senketsu started crying tears of joy as Callie quietly replied, "Yeah, he's just been really lonely, that's all."

"-And if you ever get me free from this vespa, **PLEASE** you have _**got**_ to give me a good ironing. It's been way too long since I've had a good ironing! Oh man, Miss Mankanshoku's iron was simply the best thing I've- do you have any irons? I'd like to feel that again right now anyways even if it wouldn't do me any good. Oh and also, I've had this stupid nagging itch behind my left eye, sort of around where my ear would be if I were a human I think- but it's like way in the back of my head and I can't scratch it and it's been driving me crazy for the last hour and could you please just maybe put an iron onto it, please that would really just feel-"

Callie was tempted to pull the A2 connector off of her head at the sudden influx of thoughts coming in from the rambling Senketsu.

* * *

As Fam explained about one thing or another to Giselle, Davis, Teddy, and Millia- Merry's Mobuckle went off. She went over to the far corner of the room to answer.

"Mery Berry Slushies, this is Allon-ze~ speaking! How Merry I help you on this Berry bright day?" Merry replied with a grin.

_"Yo,"_ Dogold replied. _"So Callie decided to try synchronizing with Senketsu-"_

"Who?" Merry asked.

_"The thing attached to the vespa."_

"Oh, okay, continue."

_"Synchronize on a whim and see if the Voltasaur thought translation thing worked with it or not,"_ Dogold continued on from where he left off, even if it didn't make grammatical sense.

"And?" Merry asked.

_"Pretty much worked on the second try. Turns out the poor guy's been stuck with his own thoughts for so long they're just pouring out like a spigot." _ Dogold paused. _"Yui's talking with him now. Callie nearly fainted after three minutes."_

"Oi, Fam!" Merry called over, "Your vespa's name is Senketsu and it's a he."

"Senketsu, huh?" Fam mused. "Alright, that's a pretty cool name. I approve!"

Millia raised an eyebrow at how Fam didn't even question how that information had been learned.

"Aw, and here I thought she was a girl..." Giselle pouted.

_"Oh, and by the way,"_ Dogold continued, _"apparently he's rambling now about how people kept mistaking him for a girl and apparently he's really frustrated by that, so now he's crying and just where the _**HELL**_ did Yui get a box of tissues that size from?"_

"Well, Yui did have some training as an emotional therapist," Merry mulled it over. "I suppose she'd have a box somewhere for emergencies." She paused, then asked, "How big of a box are we talking here?"

_"'Bout as long as the kentrospiker."_

"Woah!" Merry's eyes went wide.

* * *

**"Can of Cloth Worms."**

**Written by Calum Traveler.**

* * *

"Ah- that's really bad," Senketsu whined upon seeing the disabled cloth creature that had been brought back. "That's really, really bad." Yui simply patted the side of his head in a comforting motion.

"So this is one of the things that has been terrorizing and kidnapping people," Millia, who had been brought in specifically to see the creature itself, frowned at the item. "It looks like some kind of uniform."

"That's because it is," Senketsu voiced, "from my world, they're called **[COVERS]**."

"Covers?" Roxy asked as she adjusted the A2 connector that she (and the others) had been given so that she (and the others) could hear Senketsu. "Who gave 'em that stupid name?"'

"That would be **[Ragyo Kiryuin]**," Senketsu said, "though she's dead now, she was the head of a world wide clothing conglomerate, the name was anagram of these creatures, **[REVOCS]."**

"Sounds like someone had an ego," Shiro remarked.

"Agreed," Torin nodded.

"I was specifically created to combat creatures like these," Senketsu continued on. "I was made from the same material- **[Life Fibers]**- but had a twist added in that made me unique among those you could consider my closest cousins. My creator infused me with the blood of his daughter, my closest friend, Ryuuko..." Senketsu looked at the Cover lying on the table. "I can only truly unlock my full potential by synchronizing with her. Even the closest blood match I've found isn't truly enough to get there."

"Lemme guess," Fam began, crossing her arms, "Davis?"

"Yes," Senketsu nodded his eye.

"So how did these... 'Covers' get here?" Millia asked.

"Same way I did, I suppose," Senketsu mused. "I was chasing after a girl, Harime, Nui-" He noticed the way the Kyoryugers all tensed up at the name. "Ah, you met her, I take it?"

"Wasn't Nui the girl who ...?" Millia began to ask when Fam 'shoosh'ed her.

"Yes, did that, got killed, came back from the dead, and then we killed her again," Fam summarized.

"And then again," Torin added. "I saw her tied up into the Core of Hell just before it exploded."

"Bragigas burned every last trace of her physical body though," Merry spoke up. "There's no way she survived any of that plus the explosion. I mean, it'd be like a snowball's chance in...! Er... You get the point." She scratched at a spot just to the side of her left eye.

"That sounds like her, alright," Senketsu grumbled. "Nui was particularly... unique. A hybrid between human DNA and Life Fibers. She essentially was a Life Fiber being given a true human form. Ragyo saw her as a daughter..."

"I think I know where this is going," Yumeji spoke up. "She escaped your world, killed this Ragyo, and came to this world. All with Quartzmon's help?"

"Everyone thought he was just her imaginary friend," Senketsu explained. "Even Ragyo didn't think much of it... she regretted that choice a thousand times over when Quartzmon...Ryouma... made his first appearance." Senketsu paused for a moment, then continued. "The reason that those Covers are here is likely because of the Original Life Fiber that I chased after when Nui and Ryouma escaped with it. They likely hid it as a source of Life Fibers, which they used during the campaign to take over this world."

"The Ades uniform's sudden change in appearance, and subsequent return to their original design afterwards," Millia guessed. "Those different uniforms were made out of Life Fibers?"

"Most definitely, but not to this degree..." Senketsu looked the dead Cover over with dread. "Anything under 30% is safe for general wear. Higher than that and not for combat...things start getting messy. Those Covers are made up of 100% Life Fibers, but lack the sentience I do."

"They did act pretty feral," Eri mused. "Downright panicked when we thinned the herd down, too..."

"In my world, Ragyo controlled the original Life Fiber, and Nui and Ryouma stole that control when they fled here." Senketsu's eye narrowed. "It's more than likely that the Original Life Fiber has only recently tired of waiting for orders, and has begun to act of its own accord... In which case... We need to find it and destroy it as soon as possible."

* * *

**A.N.: Ah. Well. That's not good.**


	9. Therefore I Am

**"Remixed."**

**Written by Calum Traveler**

**Blumenkranz : [nZk] ver. from ****キルラキル ****1 REARRANGE & REMIX SOUNDTRACK CD [Bonus Disc]**

* * *

"AND NOW!" Ragyo Kiryuin spread her arms wide before the gathered heroes of Honnouji Academy, a glorious white light radiating off of her and her garment. "ALL SHALL BOW BEFORE THE LIGHT OF **[KAMUI SHINRA-KOKETSU!]** LIFE FIBERS AND HUMANS ALIKE!"

"Damn it!" Ryuuko swore as Senketsu- and every other Goku uniform with a transformation- suddenly reverted to thier base form and froze stiff. "What the hell is with that light!?"

"Seems mother decided to put us all in time out..." Satsuki growled, even as Junketsu's eyes stared up in fear at the so called "ultimate Kamui" that Ragyo wore.

"Now then...!" Ragyo began to lower her arms... only to suddenly realize that she couldn't. "What...?"

Nui's melodious laughter broke the silence. "Sorry, Mama, it seems you're Kamui's scared of its own light."

"What- What trickery is this!?" Ragyo yelled down at her wayward daughter. "YOU DARE TO BETRAY ME TOO, NUI!?"

"Dare?" Nui tilted her head to the side. "How can I dare to 'betray' you when I was never with you in the first place."

Everyone's eyes widened at that simple little phrase.

"No way!" Ryuuko gasped, "Did dad get to Nui too somehow...?"

"More like that Silver-brained baboon," Nonon yelped, eyes darting upwards towards the tallest point of Honnouji. "Look up there!"

Standing there with a proud smirk was none other than Ryouma Mogami.

"Seems its time to launch the final stage of our plan, Harime-chan," Ryouma remarked as he held up his Xros Loader, almost unseeable at that distance for those beneath him- and then he disappeared into a bust of static.

"Haaiiii~!" and with that- Nui exploded into a pile of clothes... A Decoy!

_**Ich möchte stärker werden, weil unsere Welt sehr grausam ist**_

And then there was the sound of footsteps from behind Ryuuko and the others who had gotten caught up in that stasis field...

It was Nagita and Maiko- both grinning insanely and being able to move freely in the light that was freezing everything else.

_**Es ist ratsam, welke Blumen zu entfernen**_

"What- How are they...!?" Senketsu's eye widened as realization struck him. "No! It can't be!"

Maiko's eyes flashed to a disturbingly familiar shade of green as she discarded her glasses. "Oh but it can be...!"

_**Du fragst mich, ob ich mit dir komm**_

_**Du flüsterst mir in mein Ohr**_

Nagita grabbed the scissor blade in Ryuuko's possession away from her as she passed. "I'll be taking that back now...!"

Maiko did the same for the blade that Satsuki owned, instead replacing it with Bakuzan- the sword that had been stolen in that first dramatic appearance. "You can have this one back."

_**Du fragst mich, ob ich deine Hand nehm**_

_**Ich hab keinen Grund, dich abzulehnen**_

"What- what do you two fools think you're doing!?" Ragyo yelled at them as the marched fearlessly up towards her.

"Ne, Ryou~me," Nagita said- his voice shifting into a sickenly sweet, girlish tone as he too tossed away his glasses, "Mama doesn't get it yet, does she?"

"No, she doesn't," Maiko's voice shifted into masculine as they climbed higher and higher.

_**Du fragst mich, ob ich mit dir komm**_

_**Du flüsterst mir in mein Ohr**_

Then- with an almost giddy glee- the two of them placed the two scissor blade handles into Ragyo's hands, and forced her fingers closed around them... but instead of the colors changing into anything that was expected of Ragyo's ownership- both blades turned sickenly green.

"Wh-What is this!?" Ragyo cried out.

_**Du fragst mich, ob ich deine Hand nehm **_

And with a shared smirk- the two disguised teens infront of Ragyo threw off their clothes- and everyone watched as their bodies suddenly shifted into those that truly lay underneath, complete with their usual attire already on.

_**(Du flüsterst mir)**_

Harime, Nui, and Mogami, Ryouma.

_**Ja, ich bin viel stärker, als ich je gedacht hab**_

Nonon's eyes widened in shock- "No way! Those two no-stars were them the entire time!?"

_**Fliege höher! Laufe viel schneller! Vergiss die Wahrheit nicht!**_

Nearby- Mako's eyes narrowed in anger- "Maiko-chan...Nagita-kun... Used us!? "

_**Ja, ich bin viel stärker, als ich je gedacht hab**_

"And now for the grand finalie!" Nui clapped her hands.

"Time Rift..." Ryouma held up his Xros Loader- "OPEN!"

_**Ich entferne welke Blumen **_  
_**Wieso siehst du so traurig aus?**_

And then a massive green tear in space opened up above Honnouji Academy- sucking everything it could into itself with a pull that seemed light yet super strong all at the same time.

And then the Original Life Fiber began to be pulled from its resting place- shrieking in terror as it's loosest fibers were pulled loose and into the vortex above- soon followed by the next loosest and then the next loosest...!

"And so from the Original Life Fiber's cloth is pulled but a single thread, transforming it into a spool of thread," Ryouma said with a delighted grin.

Everyone watched in horror, confusion, and dismay as the vortex then began to work its magic on the Goku Uniforms- all of the One Stars were suddenly stripped of their clothes, or worse, drawn up into the vortex by their own uniforms which refused to come apart at the seams.

"What- What is this!?" Ryuuko cried out as she felt Senketsu struggling to not be pulled into the void.

"It's- some kind of attraction field!?" Senketsu sounded like he was gritting his teeth to get that sentence out.

_**Diese Welt ist grausam **_

_**Es ist traurig aber wahr**_

"Yup!" Nui grinned. "We're stealing every life fiber off of Earth!" And indeed- life fibers seemed to be coming in from all directions now.

"And no, you murderous bitch," Ryouma said, glaring daggers at Ragyo, "we're not doing this on their side."

_**Diese Welt ist seltsam**_

_**Es ist fraglich aber wahr**_

"Then why?" Ragyo glared daggers back.

"Because," Ryouma pulled Nui into his arms and she stood up to kiss him. "We're going to use the Life Fibers to take over another world."

_**Ist der Blumengarten echt oder falsch?**_

"Another?" Satsuki began to ask.

"World?" Gamagori finished.

"What crazy nonsense-!" Ragyo began to yell.

_**Ich möchte stärker werden, **_

_**weil unsere Welt sehr grausam ist**_

"Isn't it true, Mama, that you were going to ask me to behead myself?" Nui asked of the woman she'd once considered to be her mother.

Ragyo's eyes froze. "How did you-?"

"Alternate Timelines," Ryouma smugly replied.

_**Es ist ratsam, welke Blumen zu entfernen**_

And then the sudden rift above them made sense.

Ryouma and Nui were going to leave this world behind, taking the Life Fibers with them.

_**Ja, ich bin viel stärker, als ich je gedacht hab**_

"Also!" Nui held up her right hand, and pulled off the glove- revealing that there was a shiny silver ring lying on it. "We eloped!"

And if that wasn't enough to send Ragyo into a furiuous rage, nothing else would. Her roars of anger were almsot enough to make everyone forget that there was a giant rift in space trying to pull their clothes into it.

_**Fliege höher! Laufe viel schneller! Vergiss die Wahrheit nicht!**_

"Now now- I think it's time you shut up," Ryouma smirked. "Care to do the honors, Harime-chan?"

"With pleasure, Ryou~me!" And with that, Nui drew her hands up close to her neck- and to everyone's horror, Ragyo's arms mirrored the motion, putting the Scissor blades straight up to her skin.

_**Ja, ich bin viel stärker, als ich je gedacht hab**_

"No-! You can't!" Ragyo's eyes showed fear- true fear.

"Now who's the puppet?" Ryouma smirked.

_**Ich entferne welke Blumen**_

_**Wieso siehst du so traurig aus?**_

And then Nui shed not a single tear- "Good bye, Ragyo Kiryuin," then mimed slitting her throat.

And then Ragyo's head went flying high up into the air as the blades sliced it clean off- and then was pulled into the vortex as a swirling mass of dying Life Fibers.

_**Was willst du von mir? **_

Ragyo's body and that of the Kamui Shinra-Koketsu exploded into fibers- shooting up and following the rest of their bretherin into the vortex.

_**Ich mag wollen oder nicht, ich muss den Feind verfolgen**_

"Good bye, everyone!" Ryouma waved, grinning, "Thanks for the memories!"

With the light from Ragyo gone- it was Mako who ran at them at full speed, yelling "YOU DIDN'T EVEN INVITE US TO THE WEDDING!"

_**Ich bin nicht frei von dieser Welt**_

"BYE NIIII!" Nui waved as she and Ryouma suddenly kicked off of the ground and flew high up into the time rift- "We'll Send Postcards!"

And then Junketsu exploded into fibers- following everything else along with most other Two Star and Three Star Uniforms

_**Was willst du von mir? **_

"Ryuuko," Senketsu said suddenly- "Please forgive me."

_**Ich mag wollen oder nicht, ich muss den Feind verfolgen**_

Before Ryuuko could question what was going on- Senketsu suddenly leaped off of her, transforming into a rocket to chase after Nui and Ryouma.

_**Ich bin nicht frei von dieser Welt**_

Not even looking down upon it all was Ryouma and Nui, locked into a deep kiss even as Ryouma pressed a button on his Xros Loader to dismiss the portal.

_**Egal wie hart du auch bist**_

"SENKETSUUUU!" Ryuuko yelled out as Senketsu flung himself faster and faster at the rapidly closing portal.

_**Fliege höher! Laufe viel schneller!**_

"This isn't Goodbye, Ryuuko," Senketsu started crying as he slipped through the tiniest crack possible and into the void of space to chase after the newly formed sphere of Life Fibers- "Just a 'See you Later'!"

_**Du bist sehr stark**_

"SENKETSU!" Ryuuko cried out even as the portal slipped shut- leaving their Earth Life Fiber free...

_**Du bindest einen Blumenkranz**_

_**Wieso siehst du so traurig aus?**_

Ryuuko colapsed into Satsuki's- her sisters'- arms, and began crying.

Mako just stared up at the sky and wondered aloud- "What the Hell Just Happened!?"

Everyone stared up as well- and wondered that same thing.

* * *

**"Memory"**

**Written by Calum Traveler**

* * *

Senketsu's eye cracked open as he awoke from his slumber, "Not that one again..." Senketsu looked around the garrage that served as his temporary home on this world. For a moment- he started to panic- had everything about being able to talk to the Kyoryugers been a dream?

But no, he saw the Kyoryuger's teleport pad in the corner, and felt the microchip attached to his fabric's exterior...

That part had not been a dream.

Senketsu calmed down. "A little over a year, and I still have nightmares about that day. Atleast now I have a chance at getting back..."

"Back home, right?" Giselle asked as she walked into the garrage, carrying a small basket in her arms. Senketsu looked her over, and then noticed a familiar looking A2 connecter resting on her head. Had those Kyoryugers handed the things out to everyone?

"Yes," Senketsu nodded his eye. "I left in a hurry, hoping to stop horrible things from happening elsewhere. I never got a chance to say goodbye properly."

"I see," Giselle mused on it, "it's like when Fam, Millia, and I got exiled from here. Then we met up with Xros Heart and came back with you attached to the vespa..." She blushed slightly, then bowed. "I'm sorry, I kept getting your gender wrong!"

"It's...it's not your fault," Senketsu grumbled. "It was just hard... Not being heard. Ryuuko was the only one from my world who could hear me and then... I was alone, despite not being alone."

"I think I understand that feeling..." Giselle nodded. "For a while there, when we were on the _Silvius_ hunting skyfish, I started to feel that way. I'd really only begun to put all that aside after I realized I was making Fam sad on her birthday... We're sisters, even if we're not related, and that... well, you know?"

"I do," Senketsu chuckled, "for the longest time Ryuuko and Satsuki had no clue they were related... not until the first attempt we made to take out Ragyo: their mother. She, ah... well... After that, it was sort of the reverse of your situation. They weren't quite sure how to deal with each other. Ryuuko kept trying to force 'nee-san' out... it was sort of funny in retrospect, but at the same time..." Senketsu trailed off. "I wonder how they're doing now?"

"I was wondering the same thing with Fam when she went off in SpaceTrailmon a year ago... which somehow put her fourteen years in the future?" Giselle shook her head. "Fam really wasn't much of a fighter back then. She was a pilot, loved to fly. I thought it was sad that she left you behind like she did."

"Considering what we went through in the Grand Exile, I'm not surprised," Senketsu grumbled. "What happened in there... they were events I should have been able to prevent, and yet I ended up facilitating them."

"It saved the Augusta's life," Giselle reminded him. "Surely that means something?"

"We saved one life at the cost of how many?" Senketsu asked rhetorically and answered in the same breath, "Don't answer. I already know. Part of that is why Fam left. Sometimes she would come in here, we'd fly out, and for a while she'd just yell and scream at me for what happened. I don't blame her for it. Honestly, I liked the attention, even if it was negative to a fault."

"Davis and Fam never told me what happened, except that Davis killed Quartzmon," Giselle frowned. "Was it really that bad?"

"I've been sworn to secrecy," Senketsu said in a less-than-helpful tone. "Right when we escaped with the Augusta... Fam made us all promise never to tell what happened to anyone."

"You're sort of talking about it now," Giselle pointed out that simple little fact.

"I'm speaking in half-truths and generalizations," Senketsu's eye narrowed. "Anything else would be betraying the trust that so many people put in me."

"So how much of what went on before we met Xros Heart do you know?" Giselle asked, deciding to change subjects.

"Not too much," Senketsu admitted. "Just generalizations of various facts and events. No real solid details. You all did your explinations away from me, remember?"

"Ah, that's true, isn't it?" Giselle thought it over. "Well, it basically went like this..."

**[THEN]**

_"Sky pirates, like Fam and I were at the time, hunted Skyfish to make our livings. We hunted Ades ships primarily, and scrapped them for parts to sell to other sky pirates and other countries, occasionally."_

"FIRST HARPOON!" Fam cried out as the vespa- silver and definitely not covered in life fibers- shoot two harpoons out at the giant skyfish infront of them. The harpoons then overshot the ships' engines, and then fell backwards into the jetstream and crashed into the rotary blades- bringing them to a grinding halt.

_"On that one fateful day, Ades and Turan were to sign a peace treaty at the Grand Lake... it turned into a massacre."_

Ades ships blotted out the sky as they approached the tiny Turan fleet.

Princess Millia looked up with wide fearful eyes as she clung to her sisters robes.

_"We Sky Pirates went in, and Fam being Fam, decided to help the Turan Princesses by stealing their flagship."_

"We will escort you to safety in exchange for-" Millia's eyes widened. "WHAT!? They can't be serious!"

"Respond to them," the older princess ordered a series of signal flares, which made Millia's incredulous reaction shift from the Sky Pirates to her older sister.

_"Needless to say, Fam's plan worked."_

"AND TUUUUUUUURN!" Dio yelled- spinning the wheel of the Turan flagship- and seemingly crashing it all into the Grand Lake.

_"Ades thought the Princesses were dead, and moved on to attack the Turan capital. Meanwhile, Millia's older sister sent us on to Turan to warn their father."_

"You must be brave, Millia," the sickly man said, hugging Millia closely, "Turan will still stand as long as you remain safe..."

_"We just didn't expect what happened next to actually happen."_

The Turan Flagship was on a collison course with the Ades flagship- and then suddenly missed.

"What happened?!" Atamora of the Sky pirates asked in surprise.

Dio's vespa flew up alongside the bridge window, and he looked inside in horror. Everyone was dead. He pulled up towards the landing docks and narrowed his eyes at a silver haired, green eyed boy who had the elder princess slung over his shoulder.

**[NOW]**

"Ryouma?" Senketsu blinked. "He took such an early intervention in events?"

"Apparently," Giselle nodded. "He wasn't guild born unlike Luscinia and his personal body guard, Dio knew that much just by looking at his eyes."

"What happened next?" Senketsu asked.

"After Millia found out, she asked Fam to rescue her sister," Giselle recalled. "We entered the Impetus and found the bridge room."

**[THEN]**

"GIVE ME BACK MY SISTER!" Millia fired off the message gun straight at **[Primere Luscinia Hāfez****],** who did nothing but smirk.

A sudden blade whipped off of his uniform and sliced the projectile in half.

"What the-!?" Fam's eyes widened in surprise.

"Release transformation!" Luscinia ordered.

And then the strangest thing happened...

The entire ship changed shape.

**[NOW]**

"The uniforms were life fibers," Senketsu confirmed.

"And those early ships weren't actually ships at all," Giselle shook her head. "Decoys. Half of the _Real_ fleet was nowhere near Turan. Millia, Fam, and I got thrown out of that ship into the lake below, and we had to watch helpelessly as monsters descended onto Turan."

"Why capture the princess?" Senketsu asked. "She was the Exile Key, yes, but why not drop the Turan exile onto Turan itself?"

"Beyond irony?" Giselle shrugged. "I think they needed to find the Mysterions to summon the Exile itself. It was probably written down somewhere in the Turan record halls, which were spared in that fight. But other than that, it was probably a scare tactic. Ades had technology nobody had ever seen before. A ship could not be a ship? When they finally did summon the Turan Exile...well..."

**[THEN]**

The elder Princess of Turan had turned on them- stolen Millia's fleet of stolen Ades ships- and now attacked the _Silvius_ as she attempted to flee battle.

Of course- it didn't help when reports came in that monsters had invaded the ship's interior.

_"Fam!" _Captain Tatiana's voice called down through the intercoms- _"The Silvius is being boarded! Take Princess Millia and get her to safety!"_

In the cargo hold- Fam and Giselle were already finished preparing their Vespa for flight. They had just seen Dio hold off one of those monsters- after all- and he had told them to run.

"I've got the elevator prepared!" Millia called out as she finished her assigned task.

"Great!" Fam yelled- "We're just finished here too!"

_"We escaped the _Silvius,_ and were flying out towards Glacias' border when..."_

There was a beam of blue light shooting out from one of the stolen stolen ships- shooting upwards into the heavens.

"What is that!?" Millia cried out in terror.

The beam hit one of the Moons- and then it began to grow larger...no, it simply began to come Closer.

The Turan exile descended rapidly- and quickly filled up the entire sky.

It began to pulse with energy and then-

**[NOW]**

"Then I blacked out," Giselle admitted.

"Or rather- that was what caused the explosion that sent us all flying to the Digital World," Senketsu corrected. "What a strange series of events."

"Agreed," Giselle nodded.

* * *

**"Conflicting Facts"**

**Written by Calum Traveler.**

* * *

"Sooo..." Roxy began as she and Fam walked down the narrow streets of a city market, "You never mentioned the talking vespa before."

"He didn't talk then," Fam glanced aside at some potatoes. "Besides, I really didn't like him all that much back then... I've changed, now, thanks to you guys, but..." Fam sighed. "Can we not talk about this right now?"

"If not now, then probably never!" Roxy said in sing song as she picked up a tomato and looked it over. "Hm... I think this is fresh enough."

"Probably," Fam nodded in agreement.

"So anyways," Roxy continued on, "I'm just going to try to piece this all together here. You and uncle Davis go-"

"Uncle?" Fam asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Hey, he was helping Xros Heart out well before I was even born," Roxy reminded Fam. "And besides that- Time Travel! Hey! Let's go back to then and find the Life Cloth thing before it goes dormant and then we won't have to fight here and now!"

"No way, that's my own personal timeline you're talking about here," Fam narrowed her eyes. "We're not going to erase me from existance here by changing events."

"Alright alright," Roxy rolled her eyes. "It was just a suggestion...not even a serious one at that!"

"Yeah? So?"

"So! Right! You and Davis went into the Grand Exile, and...?" Roxy got a tomato to the face.

"Nope," Fam griped, tossing the tomato vendor a coin, "that one was _**Not**_ fresh at all!"

"Faaaammmmm!" Roxy whined as she tried to wipe her face clean with the sleeve of her jacket. "That wasn't very nice!"

"Blame Dogold then," Fam remarked somewhat harshly before softening her tone. "Look, Roxy, I get that you wanna know, but," Fam sighed, "I don't want to go over it again. It was a LOT to live through the first time... And knowing what I know now about the first Grand Race..."

"Look, I get it." Roxy frowned, "I really do. But how much of what you told me back then- about you not wanting to make friends or else they'd get hurt- how much of that was the truth?"

Fam frowned as well as the thought back to that conversation so long ago... "I don't know, anymore, Roxy. I really don't," she finally said. "It was about as true as I could be to my emotions, but... I dunno. I really don't know anymore. So much had happened... It seems like a whole 'nother life time ago. Like I was someone else back then that I'm not now."

Roxy sighed, "Well, Fam, I guess that's about as good of an answer as I'm going to get out of you." She gave a stern glare at Fam, though, "But if I find out you're lying about this, you're in for some serious trouble!"

"Alright, alright! I get the point!" Fam relented underneath Roxy's glare.

* * *

**A.N.: I Did *NOT* mean to sit on this update for an entire week. How'd it get to be Friday already? **


	10. Concept Ideas

**"But what about the pipe?"**

**Written by Calum Traveler**

* * *

"Zenjiiiiroouuu~~!" Lila called out with a scowl as she strolled past the dining hall. Damned that man- where had he run off to now? "Big important news to share with him and it's like he's nowhere on the ship!"

"Like who's not on the ship?" A question was asked through a mouth-full of food down by her feet as she passed by.

Lila stopped, paused, turned around and looked down. "Oh, Hi, Wormmon."

"Hello," Wormmon waved up at her.

"I'm looking for my wandering swordsman-mechanic of a husband, seen him around lately?" Lila asked in what sounded like an intentionally exaggerated tone of concern, then drawing up her hair into the grassy spikes that seemed to be Zenjirou's style, "He's got hair like this, all sticky uppy? Oh please tell me you've seen him!"

"Ah! All sticky uppy hair!" Wormmon nodded, then pointed with a claw back into the kitchen, "He got recruited to help with fixing the fridge a while ago. And then the stove when _that_ broke down next, and he's been stuck on a clog in the kitchen sink after that. Been there for about three hours now, I think. I can take you to him, if you want me to."

"Thank you, Wormmon," Lila knelt down to pet the Digimon on the head. "That'd be great."

"It would my pleasure to help, Ma'am!" Wormmon nodded.

Lila passed by a table where Davis and one of the girls from that other world, Giselle, were chatting about something or another while Vmon ate some kind of sugary foodstuff.

"And it was _sooo_ stinky, I swear that he must have hit me with an apple-smell-o-ray or something," Davis was grumbling, and Lila had to cover her nose as she passed by him in particular. That strong scent of apples was wreaking havoc on her nose, threatening to trigger a sneezing storm she likely couldn't stop.

"Sorry about that," Wormmon apologized once they were out of Davis's hearing range, "That last Quartzmon thought it funny to make Davis smell like apples. It's quite pleasant once you get used to it."

"Pleasant?" Lila grimaced, "We must have different ideas of pleasant, Wormmon. That smelled horrid..."

"You're the first one to react that strongly to it," Wormmon remarked, "maybe Kaiyumi-san will have some idea how to get rid of it."

"Maybe," Lila frowned, "where is she anyways?"

"Watching Merry-chan for the moment while Rina-san and Hideaki-san talk with King Shoutmon," Wormmon said. "She doesn't do much but sleep right now, so I think Kaiyumi-san's taking the opportunity to sketch and plan. I think she's gotten an idea for something big, but as for what, I wouldn't know."

"Knowing her," Lila chuckled, "she could be planning out the designs for a giant battle robot the size of a universe to use to squash Quartzmon with it's pinky toe!"

"Hahah, a robot the size of the universe huh?" Wormmon laughed, "Now that I'd like to see!"

They reached the kitchen- where a foul smell was wafting up from beneath the sink (Lila once more covered her nose) and there also happened to be a pair of legs sticking out as well, belonging to a torso that was grunting as its arms tried to turn something unseen inside the sink's opened up frame.

"Thank you for following Worm-rails," Wormmon said in a cute mockery of a train announcer, "Now departing for the fridge...!" and with that, he absconded for the refrigerator.

"Um," Lila took a step over to the sink, "Zenji?"

Another grunt- but this one of confirmation, followed by a "Yeah, Lila?" that sounded just a tad distracted. Yup, that was Zenjirou alright.

"So...you remember the other night?" Lila asked. "When we were out on the lake?"

"Uh-huh..." she couldn't see his head moving, but she knew he was nodding.

"So..." Lila took a deep breath to steel herself. "I talked with Nene this morning. And... I'm pregnant."

There was a sudden _**THUD**_, followed by a rattling of metal, and equally followed by a yelping "OW!"

Before she could react- Zenjirou pulled himself out from under the sink, nursing a bump to the forehead with one of his hands, "Would you mind repeating that? I think I misheard you the first time due to hitting my head just now." He stared up at her with wide eyes, so terribly confused, shocked, and partially concussed all at the same time.

"I'm pregnant," Lila repeated, hands crossed in front of her stomach nervously.

He blinked for a moment- then stared ahead blankly. "Huh. So I didn't mishear that the first time."

"Are you okay?" Lila asked, getting down on her knees to pull his hand away from his head to inspect the damage from the pipe. She hissed slightly, if they were lucky it wouldn't bruise over.

"Yeah, I think I'll be fine," Zenjirou said quietly, "but I think I'm still processing this new information to really feel any pain at the moment..." He turned to look at her, "So...you and me, huh?"

"Yup," Lila nodded, smiling slightly.

"Me...a dad..." Zenjirou laughed slightly, "and here my parents thought I wasn't ever going to follow through with even asking you to marry me in the first place. Shows them, right?" It wasn't meant as anything but a joke, not from the tone of his voice to the slowly forming grin on his face.

"Yeah, shows them, alright," Lila nodded, giggling in agreement, "and they're going to be grandparents too!"

"Crap," Zenjirou's eyes shrunk slightly, "mom is going to go nuts over this. I can just imagine it now. Baby showers every month til the kid's born, and maybe even after that." He waved a hand out through the air looking horribly scared, "Just baby showers, baby showers everywhere."

Lila started laughing, until the full spectrum of that comment hit her full on, and she realized- "Shit." -he was completely and totaly serious with that remark, and was not joking at all.

"Maybe..." Zenjirou began, "maybe we should hold off on telling my parents for a while."

"Definitely," Lila agreed.

* * *

**"Are we Back In time?"**

**Written By Calum Traveler**

* * *

"And you're sure about this...?" Sylen's voice echoed down the halls of the SpaceTrailmon's neck as Akari walked up the steps towards the bridge.

"One hundred percent," Rina's voice next. "If it were just ours, I wouldn't be so sure, but coupled with the _Friday..._"

"Yo," Akari called out as she stepped into the bridge, "What'd I miss?"

"We lost the trail, Akari," Sylen said flatly, not even turning away from the monitor he was looking at.

"So, what now?" Akari asked.

"We've got an estimated path through space time," Hideaki explained. "But even if we reach those girl's planet, we're not going to arrive at the same time they left. That bridge- that tunnel- it's _gone._"

"How long?" Akari asked.

"At least a week, rough average," Rina said, "could be more, could be less. We won't know until we get there."

"Can't we just transport with the time engine?" Akari asked. "Skip ahead to that world, then jump back?"

"The Friday doesn't do those long range jumps, remember?" Rina reminded her. "Besides that, the time engines require precise coordinates to jump properly so we don't crash into anything, and we've got neither space nor time coordinates."

"I remember that," Akari frowned. "I just don't get why we don't have the coordinates, is all. Usually we're able to pinpoint everything down to a T."

"The bridge we were following was technically a wormhole when it formed, navigating through a large distance of space rather quickly, and it intersected a solar flare at least once when it sent those girls through," Hideaki explained. "Stuff like that tends to screws up the scanners really badly."

"So we're taking the long way then," Akari sighed, "alright. Makes sense."

"It could be worse," Sylen said, standing up and turning around to cross his arms as he looked at everyone, "we could have lost the world's estimated position entirely. Then we'd be stuck with three exiles with no way to get them home."

"We've still got to tell them," Hideaki said, scowling. "And I, for one, don't look forwards to being the bearer of bad news."

"So beyond that," Sylen said, "the plan remains unchanged." He paused for a moment, and completely changed subjects, "Hey, Akari, did Knightmon and the PawnChessmonz come with us?"

"Yeah, they're crashed out in their quarters though," Akari nodded. "I think they've slept through the entire trip since we left the last world, came home, and left again. Why do you ask?"

"Just making conversation," Syeln brushed it off, even though clearly he was thinking about contingency plans. "Dorulumon?"

"Kiriha had him working on something when your call came in," Akari clarified. "So he wasn't with us when we left."

(Hideaki turned to Rina, and whispered, "I'm going to go check in on Merry.")

"MetalGarurumon then?" Sylen asked, referring to the former Digi-memory Oblivion Knight.

("Okay," Rina nodded.)

"Should be in the armory," Akari said. "You thinking of something?"

"Just trying to make early substitutions if we need to Xros," Sylen replied. "And Yuu has Starmon with him, right?"

"Yeah," Akari nodded even as Hideaki slipped past her with an "Excuse me."

* * *

**"Solution, meet problem."**

**Written by Calum Traveler**

* * *

Kaiyumi- as her human form was known- was a smart girl, and had always been such even when an amateur Xros Loader modder back when she had still been a Lopmon in the Village of Smiles.

As such- it frustrated her to no end that her designs and plans for a Temporal Synchronization Device refused to follow through into functionality. "Bloody fate of the multiverse on my shoulders, can't even figure out how to get that much energy to flow through such a small space..."

She looked over at the crib where a sleeping baby lay, and sighed. "Merry, I hope you never have to go through what I'm going through right now."

With a shake of her head, she returned back to her sketching.

The problem simply was that generating that much power was easy with an engine the size of Space Trailmon's- but condensing it down any smaller was simply impossible unless they stuck a - And then she face palmed. "How did I Miss That!?"

Unless they stuck one of The _Good Friday'_s size-gate generators on it, or...if they still had access to Sparrowmon's hover board, the size-adjustment data that made Xros-Five able to shift sizes according to the enemy.

The Generator would have to do for now- but producing something of that size in the first place would be nearly impossible without alerting the others to her plans. Plus then there needed to be the matter generation systems, plus Simon's drill summoning factors to keep in mind... And then the overwhelming power of adding a Xros Loader into the mix, the physics of it all would break her mind if she had to work out the minute details of every single problem...

"For every solution, there's a problem," she grumbled, glancing at her watch. One year was almost up. The Butterfly effect would be reaching Emmit soon, and if Future Her was right about the calculations... "Grraahhh!" Kaiyumi turned to a different page in her sketch book. Dinosaurs. She had no clue why, but there was just something stress-relieving about drawing robotic dinosaurs when she hit a road block.

"Not liking how it's working out?" Asked Hideaki as he came walking into the lounge room that they were in.

"No, just...road blocks," Kaiyumi sighed. "I know what I want to build, just not how to build it."

Hideaki looked over her shoulder at the displayed Dinosaurs as he walked by, "Since when did T-Rexes have straw for hair?"

"They're feathers," Kaiyumi corrected. "I didn't just want to rip off the MetalGreymon design from Davis' universe. So...feathers."

"Ah-" Hideaki nodded in approval, "so you want to build a giant robot T-Rex then?"

"No, drawing Dinosaurs is my escape from my real work," Kaiyumi replied. "Sometimes I get inspiration from trying to figure these things out." She tapped at a diagram of a Stegosaurus opening it's mouth to receive something, "They eat rechargeable power cells to stay energized."

"Like...batteries?" Hideaki asked as he walked over to the crib to look in on Merry.

"Batteries?" Kaiyumi laughed. "Why would I use batteries? I was thinking more like..." She flipped through her note book to show a tapered, crystalline cylinder, colored crudely in yellows, oranges, and reds. "This." She held the book up, turned around so Hideaki could see it from where he was.

"A ZPM from Atlantis?" Hideaki raised an eyebrow. "You do realize that if they knew how to recharge those damned things, we wouldn't have had to-"

"Yeah, yeah, _I __**Knoooow**_," Kaiyumi groaned, leaning back against what she was sitting next to and laying her head back so she stared up at the ceiling. "Friggin' impossible, is what the ZPMs are, and their one downside is that if they _die,_ they're _**dead.**_ I want to make them rechargeable so we can return the favor to Atlantis..." And for other reasons she dare not say.

"So...rechargeable batteries, then," Hideaki remarked.

"Yes, I want to make Rechargeable, Zero Point Energy Batteries," Kaiyumi sighed in defeat.

And then.

She blinked.

"Batteries, huh?"

* * *

**A.N.: Apologies for the long delay. Been distracted with other things, such as a BRS/SAO Xros Over idea that I'm still hammering out details on...**


End file.
